Accessing and Analyzing Data with Microsoft Excel (Bpg-Other)

Office applications such as Excel, Access, the Office Web Components, and Data Analyzer all contain features that are designed to analyze OLAP data.

In Excel you can

• Analyze data stored in an OLAP database.

• Create PivotTable reports and PivotChart reports based on data in an OLAP database.

• Create offline “slices” of OLAP data, known as offline cubes, that can be stored and accessed without requiring a network connection to the originating OLAP database server.

• Open and analyze an offline cube (available only in Excel 2002).

• Create OLAP cubes from non-OLAP data. This feature allows you to work with larger amounts of data in a PivotTable report or PivotChart report than you could otherwise and also makes data retrieval and data aggregation faster.

In Access you can

• Import or link to data stored in a data warehouse on a SQL Server 2000 server computer or other compatible data warehouse.

• Create data-entry forms and reports based on data from a data warehouse.

• Create PivotTable reports or PivotChart reports using data from a data warehouse you’ve imported or linked to (available only in Access 2002).

With the Office Web Components, you can apply the same analysis capabilities that you have in Excel in a Web environment. You can quickly analyze business data in a Web browser using a PivotTable or PivotChart. You can also

• Import data from OLAP database server computers or offline cubes into Spreadsheet Components.

• Create Web-based PivotTable reports or PivotChart reports based on OLAP data stored in OLAP database servers or offline cubes.

With Microsoft Data Analyzer, you can

• Use a new, synchronized, color-coded bar chart to display OLAP data.

• Display bar charts, pie charts, and data grids at the same time, all synchronized to the same OLAP data.

• Export OLAP data to Excel worksheets, Excel PivotTable reports, and Microsoft PowerPoint slides.

In the next two chapters, you will learn how to access and analyze OLAP data by using these Microsoft products. Chapter 9, “Analyzing OLAP Data with Microsoft Data Analyzer,” will describe the capabilities of Data Analyzer in more detail.