clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,310
Anyone using it ?
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Very Off Topic - Power Business Intelligence (BI) Microsoft
- Thread starter clapham_gull
- Start date
Ameliaance
New member
- Feb 22, 2016
- 66
Haven't heard about it, is it their new Office package?
North East Seagull
Active member
I have it and have done an introductory training session on it. I am not that keen at the moment (seems to fall between being a reasonable query tool and a reasonable presentation tool in my mind) but I will be having a better look over the coming weeks and seeing if I can use some of the good functionality a bit more.
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,310
- Thread starter
- #4
Sorry to bounce. Like what I see after doing an online course.
If your company is infested with VBA and ridiculous formulas that are impossible to unpick - this might just be the solution.
For those inclined - they've basically turned Excel into a mini data warehouse - able to connect to disperate data sources and bring it all together with nice visualisations. Proper interactive ones - not a ropey bar chart.
Easy to upload and re-use/share analysis without formula/vba hell.
Quite nice. They've corrected in part what I hate about Excel and it's users
I know there are other solutions that are technically better - but if you already have Excel this is very cheap.
Excel now exports geo-spacial number crunching as videos.
If your company is infested with VBA and ridiculous formulas that are impossible to unpick - this might just be the solution.
For those inclined - they've basically turned Excel into a mini data warehouse - able to connect to disperate data sources and bring it all together with nice visualisations. Proper interactive ones - not a ropey bar chart.
Easy to upload and re-use/share analysis without formula/vba hell.
Quite nice. They've corrected in part what I hate about Excel and it's users
I know there are other solutions that are technically better - but if you already have Excel this is very cheap.
Excel now exports geo-spacial number crunching as videos.
Last edited:
Dick Swiveller
Well-known member
- Sep 9, 2011
- 9,156
Wondering if this would be useful to me. I have created loads of SSRS reports and would like to bring it all together. Could you please link to the online course so I can have a butchers?Sorry to bounce. Like what I see after doing an online course.
If your company is infested with VBA and ridiculous formulas that are impossible to unpick - this might just be the solution.
For those inclined - they've basically turned Excel into a mini data warehouse - able to connect to disperate data sources and bring it all together with nice visualisations. Proper interactive ones - not a ropey bar chart.
Easy to upload and re-use/share analysis without formula/vba hell.
Quite nice. They've corrected in part what I hate about Excel and it's users
I know there are other solutions that are technically better - but if you already have Excel this is very cheap.
Excel now exports geo-spacial number crunching as videos.
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,310
- Thread starter
- #6
If you (or your company ) are heavy Excel users - check this stuff out. It's as if 10 years of Excel improvements have been dumped on your desk in one go.
You don't need Excel to drive it - they've realised the technology outside.
As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft for me (and the stuff I have to analyse) have nailed it.
One of the problems with Excel is that it's bad at dealing with disperate data sources - even if they are the same. The hassle of analysing only 5 different spreadsheets etc...
I've got a number of log files to deal with. My usual approach would be to ignore Excel - pump them into a proper database and use some reporting tool.
Well I've just brought together over 10,000 files with a few clicks. If I need to add to the pool - I just refresh the spreadsheet. It's effectively some very sophisticated dataware housing on your desktop without having the need for thousands of pounds of infrastructure.
You don't need Excel to drive it - they've realised the technology outside.
As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft for me (and the stuff I have to analyse) have nailed it.
One of the problems with Excel is that it's bad at dealing with disperate data sources - even if they are the same. The hassle of analysing only 5 different spreadsheets etc...
I've got a number of log files to deal with. My usual approach would be to ignore Excel - pump them into a proper database and use some reporting tool.
Well I've just brought together over 10,000 files with a few clicks. If I need to add to the pool - I just refresh the spreadsheet. It's effectively some very sophisticated dataware housing on your desktop without having the need for thousands of pounds of infrastructure.
Last edited:
maffew
Well-known member
I've used it a lot and unfortunately MS have fallen WAY behind in self service BI. The Powermap feature (formerly code name Geoflow does look really cool) but its actually quite useless (in that there's not enough chart options)/SSRS integration, and if you start rendering more than a few hundred spatial points it become tediously slow to render, need a decent graphics card, and you cant really collaborate sharing an MP4 which a sound track over it. Still the sales guy like it in a presentation
If you want to try something for free, and these are REAL interactive charts and dashboards try Qliksense (desktop version is free). and you can share your creations via Qliks cloud for free to others where they can just log and view your MI on any device. Our clients love getting their reports on their IPad they can explore Its really really cool and very easy to create proper dashboards. Theres a massive community and you can actually have production stuff built in no time at all.
Anyway regarding MS BI suite, yeah I believe its fallen way behind now, its too cludgy in so many ways. Sure if you are an MS house running SQL Server with an OLAP warehouse, proper cubes defined and SSRS, SSAS, SSIS devs who know DAX, MDX and some decent business analysts prepared to learn Power Query, Powerpivot yada yada it becomes 'self service', just my tuppence.
If you want to try something for free, and these are REAL interactive charts and dashboards try Qliksense (desktop version is free). and you can share your creations via Qliks cloud for free to others where they can just log and view your MI on any device. Our clients love getting their reports on their IPad they can explore Its really really cool and very easy to create proper dashboards. Theres a massive community and you can actually have production stuff built in no time at all.
Anyway regarding MS BI suite, yeah I believe its fallen way behind now, its too cludgy in so many ways. Sure if you are an MS house running SQL Server with an OLAP warehouse, proper cubes defined and SSRS, SSAS, SSIS devs who know DAX, MDX and some decent business analysts prepared to learn Power Query, Powerpivot yada yada it becomes 'self service', just my tuppence.