KPI's

Question

KPI's

Toby White

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Points: 6187
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May 15, 2008 at 2:35 pm

#185606

I have created some KPI's in my cube (SSAS2005) and now I need to serve them dashboard/scorecard style. The company is using Excel 2003 for the client, and I don't see the KPI's in the Pivot table control that connects to the cube. All I see is the dimension attributes and the measures. In Excel 2007 I would see the KPI's in this control, so my question is whether I can get to the KPI's in some other way in Excel 2003 or if this is even possible. If this is not possible is there some other nifty way of delivering scorecards that you know of?
I guess a third part application is not out of the question, but if you have any recomendations it would have to be something slim and scorecard centric. This client is not interested in any new platforms or frameworks, so it would have to be a simple "widget" like app that can connect to SSAS cubes.
Thanks

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mriedmueller Grasshopper Points: 18 More actions · Answer 1

Hi Tobi,

to my knowledge it is not possible to display the KPIs in Excel 2003 in the way you want (leaving out some add ins that may do the trick).

The easiest way for you may be to talk your client into using Excel 2007 where the handling of pivot tables feeding from SSAS has been greatly improved.

The second alternative coming to mind is to set up a dashboard with SSRS. You cannot display the KPI's graphics directly, but you can use a work around to create a user experience coming quite close.

The problem is that you cannot use the graphics directly as no such elements exist in SSRS. But you can include graphical objects in your report. By selecting them according to the values of your KPIs you create a nice looking dashboard using the already existing components of your solution.

Regards,

Michael

Toby White SSCertifiable Points: 6187 More actions · Answer 2

Thank you for your response. It confirms my findings. My client does want to leverage reporting services, so it is possible that I can deliver the scorecards in SSRS. I will make the suggestion, but I do wish they would move to Excel 2007.

Thanks

WFBETC Old Hand Points: 325 More actions · Answer 3

Is there a way for SSAS to create a detached Excel Pivot Table that is emailable or viewable without a live

SSAS connection?

Toby White SSCertifiable Points: 6187 More actions · Answer 4

The spreadsheet only updates when it is set to or when you tell it to. For instance I usually set mine to update when the spreadsheet first loads. The problem is that there will be no drag/dropping from schema items unless you have a connection. The report you deliver will end up being like any other static report without the connection.

WFBETC Old Hand Points: 325 More actions · Answer 5

In otherwise, in terms of it being an operating pivot table, you can collapse and expand groups and

drill down, and hide columns but not add columns that are not already in the delivery?

mriedmueller Grasshopper Points: 18 More actions · Answer 6

In Excel 2007 you can specify to create an offline cube to be shown in a pivot table.

You can work with the cube as usual, it will need a connection only when you want to perform a refresh.

Try to play around with the options a little.

Your administrator needs to allow the creation of such cubes, but after that you have the data locally and do not need a connection.

WFBETC Old Hand Points: 325 More actions · Answer 7

Can people with Excel 2003 receive the detached Excel Pivot Tables and read them in the same way?

mriedmueller Grasshopper Points: 18 More actions · Answer 8

Unfortunately no.

But they can set an option to store the data in a pivot, in cases where the pivot is based on a relational structure. For SSAS this doesn't work if i remember correctly.