Copying from PowerPivot on Sharepoint

[johngabbradley]

I have been using PP since the original release of the beta and have created lots and lots of galleries for PP on our companies sharepoint site. One complaint that I often hear from my users and clients is that they are not able to copy results out of silverlight. I try to explain that they don't need to do this because the data will be there whenever they want to see it and I am not meeting their needs if they need to copy the data back into excel. I have one user who seems to however have a legitimate use to get data out of the silverlight. He runs a sales floor and wants to provide sales data to each team by copying the data and then sending it to them. The sales floor can not see other peoples sales numbers due to morale issues. I have thought about using different documents for each team but there are 12 different teams that are changing members all the time and would require a little more maintence the I want to put in or a change to our AD accounts. The users can't download the file because of the size (200 megs) and it also crashes their machine so that isn't an option either with their 32 bit version of office.

Anyone know how to copy out of silverlight?

Any other valid suggestion would be great if anyone has dealt with a similar situation. I seem to be lost on this one.

Thanks in advance all you super users!

 

[JavierGuillen]

Hi John!

I would say, if you are already using SharePoint PowerPivot Galleries you have one extra option: Each time you publish a PowerPivot workbook to the Gallery, it quite literally becomes a database hosted on the server (SSAS). As such, you can then consume all of its data through tools beyond Excel itself. In you case, you could build Report Builder 3.0 reports (or SSRS) reading off the PowerPivot "model", and then filter as necessary. If this is a possiblity, you can even use automated delivery mechanisms in SSRS to send to each team the (filtered) data they need. In other words, you are leveraging all your work in PowerPivot but through an interface that gives you the flexibility you may need in this case.

 

[johngabbradley]

Sounds quite brilliant. I will look into the possibilities. The reporting services would then just live on one of SSRS servers? Javier, any good reading recommendations on this one. I always tell people this with almost shame, but I come from the user side as an analyst and have dived head first into the BI world, even starting a fairly successful consulting business. Any recommendations for good material about the process you have described would be extremely helpful.

Love all the work you have done to bring this awesome technology to the forefront.

Hi John!

I would say, if you are already using SharePoint PowerPivot Galleries you have one extra option: Each time you publish a PowerPivot workbook to the Gallery, it quite literally becomes a database hosted on the server (SSAS). As such, you can then consume all of its data through tools beyond Excel itself. In you case, you could build Report Builder 3.0 reports (or SSRS) reading off the PowerPivot "model", and then filter as necessary. If this is a possiblity, you can even use automated delivery mechanisms in SSRS to send to each team the (filtered) data they need. In other words, you are leveraging all your work in PowerPivot but through an interface that gives you the flexibility you may need in this case.

 

[JavierGuillen]

Hi John!

Yes, SSRS would be hosted in a server in which you installed and configured that "component" of SQL Server. I thought it would be easier to describe the process by writing a small blog entry about how your can use SSRS connected to PowerPivot, as a potential solution for what you are looking for:

PowerPivot and Beyond: Expanding your analytical repertoire « Javier Guillén

Hope that helps!

Javier Guillen