PowerPivot Tutorials available?

[Paul_Hossler]

The company is planning to expand the use PowerPivots, data cubes, and the like.

Are there any simple tutorials available on the web about how to actually make and use them, with maybe some examples?

The Googling I've done seems to be mostly PowerPivot features and/or PR/Sales talk

Thanks

Paul

[Paul_Hossler]

I tracked down a Que and a Microsoft Press book to order from the local bookstore, but I'd still be interesting in something else if anyone can point me.

Paul

[Bob Phillips]

Paul,

Although I get a tad exasperated with his frivolous style all of the time, I would suggest that the best book is Rob Collie's book

I have the eBook, and whilst I might claim I didn't really learn anything from it, I have been using PowerPivot for 2 years, have read the Russo/Ferrari book, and present a course on PowerPivot, I would still concede that it is probably the best starter.

He doesn't cover data modelling to any extent, and I argue that this is a crucial aspect, especially when trying to use PowerPivot to link Excel sheets, I have had some real fun and games with tables that are many-to-many relationships.

[Bob Phillips]

There are also tons of blogs and articles, but they can get a bit heavy at times.

You should look at the MS videos, they are PR and lamentably fail to show the real power and the real difficulties, but they get you going quickly.

[stanl]

One real difficulty I encountered was getting the Data Mining Add-On to work. I have SQL Server Express 2008 R2 and downloaded the Data Mining App, installed it and it would show in Excel (tried in both 2010 and 2013) - but the app will not connect to my SQL Server instance, and soon Excel wants to disable the add-on.

I also have Visual Studio 2008, and it recognizes data mining but cannot create a useful sample to play with.

Finally, just to be safe I downloaded and re-installed the Adventureworks files (specific to Data Mining), can see them in Management Studio, but cannot do anything with them.... bummer.

[end or rant]

[Paul_Hossler]

XLD and stanl -- thanks for the insights and recommendations

Paul