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MSAS : Office 2000 OLAP Components

Author : Exforsys Inc. Published on: 25th Mar 2005

PivotTable component in Office 2000 is the PivotTable report feature. It allows the user select and cross tabulate numerical values in ways that are similar to the processes of a cube. The earlier versions of this report in Excel could only extract values from relational data sources. The version under reference can present data directly form an OLAP cube.

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There is another PivotTable in Office 2000 which is a PivotTable list feature. This is a part of the Office Web Components. This component has the same functionalities as the PivotTable report, but includes capabilities that aren’t available in Excel component. It can function like a ActiveX control and be included in a web page or a Visual Basic application or Microsoft Word document.

PivotTable Report

The PivotTable Repot draws its data in two ways. In the first method, it imports values from an Excel List or a database table and stores the values in memory. When the user manipulates the PivotTable report, the necessary data is retrieved form the memory cache. In the second method, it uses an OLAP cube to derive its data. It communicates with the PivotTable Service of the Analysis Service and retrieves data from the cubes therein.

Let us examine how the PivotTable works

Open Microsoft Excel. Click on ‘PivotTable and PivotTableChart Report’ from the data menu.

This opens the PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard.

In the above screen the user has to specify the “External Data source” and “PivotTable” and click Next. This opens the Step 2 dialog box as below:

Click the “Get Data” button to specify the data source for retrieving data. Excel automates the Microsoft Query and pops up the Choose Data dialog box. Microsoft Query needs to be installed as part of Office Setup before it can be used with this option.

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Select the OLAP Cubes tab in the above dialog box to select a cube from the list of cubes defined earlier. Select the cube that is to be used and click OK. The cube selected here is saved as a cube file (*.Cub) on the Client hard disk. However, we will define a new cube here and then use it to retrieve data. Click on <New Data Source>.

The Create New Data Source dialog box opens prompting the user select the source for the data and the OLE DB Provider for OLAP Services. Specify a name for your new cube definition. Select OLE DB Provider for OLAP Services 8.0 or OLAP Services.

For the purpose of this tutorial we will select Microsoft OLE DB Provider for OLAP Services. Click the Connect button. The Multi-dimensional connection dialog enables the user connect to either OLAP services server or the existing cube file on the hard disk.

Let us enter a name of the server and click next. The dialog box illustrated to the right appears prompting the user select the cube on the server. Select Sample and click Finish. The user is back to the Create New Data Source Dialog box and he is prompted to select the cube as below:

Click Next button. The Choose Data Source dialog box appears once more showing the user the newly added cube. Select the cube and Click OK to get back to the PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard.

Click Finish on the above dialog box and Excel embeds a new empty PivotTable object into the worksheet. The Pivot table toolbar is also displayed. Populating the table is achieved using the toolbar. There are four placeholders that are used to accomplish this task.

PAGE FIELDS act like slicers or filters for data. Only members can be used as page fields when a level or dimension is added to the drop area. Members from the measure dimension, for instance, cannot be added to the page fields.
COLUMN FIELDS AND ROW FIELDS determine the data displayed on the columns and row axes respectively. These axes may contain any type of data from a cube structure except measures.
DATA ITEMS determine the numerical data portion of the spreadsheet. Only members from the measure dimension can be used as data items.

The toolbar gives the user a list of items from the cube to drop into the PivotTable. Inside the List item tree the user selects the data field required, specifies the row area option and clicks Add To button to add the field to the table. Similarly Column areas are also to be specified and the measures to be used are defined with reference to the items in the row group

Manipulating the PivotTable

The PivotTable is used for non technical people and hence has a simple drag and drop interface. It allows multiple dimensions on row and column axes and multiple member as page fields. Drilldown operations can be performed using the drop down list boxes and by double clicking the members listed in either of the axes. Sub totals and grand total are calculated automatically and displayed. The Format Report and Table Options in the PivotTable Toolbar can be used for customizing the look and feel of the PivotTable. Advanced functionalities of the PivotTable can be accessed by right clicking on the column or row heading of a PivotTable and select Field Settings from the pop up menu.

The PivotChart draws its values from the PivotTable. It provides all the functionalities common in charting programs. Users can select from a variety of chart types, sort data, perform TopCount operations and use formulas to manipulate the cube data.

In the next tutorials we drill down into greater details on how to build, manipulate and process cubes using the various services provided in the Analysis services.