Power View: Analysis and Visualization for Your Application’s Data

Level: Intermediate

Andrew J. BrustFounder and CEO

• CEO and Founder, Blue Badge Insights• Big Data blogger for ZDNet• Microsoft Regional Director, MVP• Co-chair VSLive! and 17 years as a speaker• Founder, Microsoft BI User Group of NYC

– http://www.msbinyc.com

• Co-moderator, NYC .NET Developers Group– http://www.nycdotnetdev.com

• “Redmond Review” columnist for Visual Studio Magazine and Redmond Developer News

• brustblog.com, Twitter: @andrewbrust

Meet Andrew

My New Blog (bit.ly/bigondata)

Read All About It!

Agenda

• Intro• Basic Use• Data Acquisition• Filtering• Advanced Visualizations• Advanced Features

What is Power View?

• Ad hoc reporting. Really!• Analysis, data exploration• Data Visualization• In Silverlight, in the browser, in SharePoint• Feels a little like Excel BI• Is actually based on SSRS

– Power View makes a special RDL file

How Do You Get It?

• It will ship with SQL Server 2012, BI and Enterprise Editions

• It will require SharePoint 2010 and the SharePoint Enterprise Client Access License (eCAL)

• It will work against data in BI Semantic Models (BISMs):– PowerPivot (on SharePoint) – “Tabular” mode of SQL Server Analysis Services in

SQL Server 2012

Power View!In the browser, in Silverlight

Ribbon, like Excel

Field list, like Excel

Variety of visualizationsand data formats

Data regions pane,like Excel

View Modes

Maximize one chart,fit report to window, put whole report in Reading Mode or Full Screen

Create multiple pages (views)

Power View Basics

BISM: A Column-Oriented Store• Imagine, instead of:

• You have:

• Perf: values you wish to aggregate are adjacent• Efficiency: great compression from identical or nearly-

identical values in proximity• Fast aggregation and high compression means huge volumes

of data can be stored and processed, in RAM

Employee ID Age Income

1 43 90000

2 38 100000

3 35 100000

Employee ID 1 2 3

Age 43 38 35

Income 90000 100000 100000

Data Import

• Relational databases– SQL Server (including SQL Azure!), Access– Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Informix– Teradata– “Others” (OLE DB, including OLE DB provider for ODBC)

• OData feeds, incl. R2/Denali Reporting Services, SharePoint 2010 lists, Azure DataMarket, ADO.NET Data Services (Astoria)

• Excel via clipboard, linked tables• Filter, preview, friendly names for tables/columns

DirectQuery Mode

• In DQ mode, model defines schema, but is not used for data

• Queries issued directly against source

• Similar to ROLAP storage for conventional SSAS cubes

Creating a SharePoint Power View Data Source

• To repeat: Power View works only against PowerPivot/SSAS tabular models– DirectQuery mode supported, however

• For PowerPivot, click “Create Power View Report” button or option on workbook in SharePoint report gallery

• For SSAS tabular model, create BISM data source, then click its “Create Power View Report” button or option– BISM data sources can point to PowerPivot

workbooks too, if you want.

Power View Data Acquisition

Constraining Your Data InPower View

• Tiles– A filtering mechanism within a visualization

• Highlighting– Selection in one visualization affects the others

• Slicers– Similar to Excel against PowerPivot

• True Filters– Checked drop-down list; very Excel-like– Right-hand filter pane, similar to SSRS and Excel

Services

Power View Filtering

Multipliers

• Multiple charts within a chart, in columns, rows, or a matrix– Horizontal and vertical multipliers

• Allows for visualizing 1 or 2 additional dimensions

Scatter/Bubble Charts

• Allow for several measures• Features a “play” axis which can be

manipulated through a slider or animated• Excellent way to visualize trends over time

Power View Advanced Visualizations

BISM Advanced ModelingDefault Aggregations Special Advanced Mode

Reporting

properties

Hierarchies

Hide specific

columns andtables

Measures

KPIs

Perspectives

Reporting Properties

• Setting the representative column and image tells Power View how to summarize your data, and show stored images

• Other properties tell it about: key attributes, default aggregations and more

• These properties were, essentially, created for Power View– Though other clients are free to use them too

Advanced Modeling and Properties

Why Is Power View in SharePoint?

• Integration with PowerPivot and Excel Services– Create Power View reports in the same place the data

sits, and side-by-side with other analyses

• Document security subsystem– Building a new one just for Power View would have

delayed the product

• SharePoint is the MS BI Presentation Layer– Excel Services– PerformancePoint Services– Reporting Services (SharePoint integration is optional)

Non-SharePoint-Dependent Alternatives

• Dundas Dashboard• Tableau• .NET data viz components from Telerik,

DevExpress, ComponentOne, Infragisticsand…

• Reporting Services…

Data Visualization in SSRS

Futures

• Shown at PASS: HTML 5• Rumored: Windows 8 Metro• One day?: Non-BISM data• Originally planned: Export to PowerPoint• My hope: permission to deploy in non-

SharePoint scenarios:– Silverlight or Metro apps– Standalone, hosted on Azure or Office 365– A free Excel add-in, for desktop use

Summing Up

• Power View is Microsoft’s first true ad hoc reporting technology

• It’s also the first data BI stack component to make heavy use of XAML

• An underlying motivation for the team was to make data exploration fun, and it shows

• Power View is part of Microsoft’s BI Renaissance

Thank you

• andrew.brust@bluebadgeinsights.com• @andrewbrust on Twitter• Want to get the free “Redmond Roundup

Plus?”– Text “bluebadge” to 22828