Today's blog is about using PowerPivot to solve real-world problems.
While PowerPivot hasn't hit the street as a shipping product yet, I'm intrigued by it, and I think it has a good future. However, I see its value differently than some.
I see it as th tool you use to add a degree of flexibility and agility to a larger data warehouse strategy. Sure, I see how it can be used to meet entirely standalone needs, but I don't think that's where its greatest potential lies.
No matter how well we plan, real-world requests and requirements always seem to stay just ahead of us, and there's always a creative power user out there ready to build a data mart with Excel and VBScript to fill those gaps.
Wouldn't it be great if we could have a flexible tool to fill in the (hopefully) small number of requests that our data warehouse can't yet meet, but do it in a way that preserves the integrity of what's already in production? I think PowerPivot may be that tool, and I think you should take a look.
The below embedded video walks through using PowerPivot to turn around an analysis request that doesn't quite meet the structure of an in-place data warehouse.
Note: You can view this video full screen by pressing the full screen button on the bottom toolbar. It's the second item from the right-hand side.