PowerPivot

This week’s topic is for you Power Users out there. It is also intended to perhaps Inspire the rest of us mere mortals, and to bring your attention to a Free (“Free” is always cool) Powerful Tool.

There are times when being able to combine and analyze data from a number of sources would be, (as I like to quote Martha Stewart), "A Good Thing." Let’s say that you have several SQL databases housed on SharePoint and other sources, and you want to load the data and create interactive queries from within an Excel workbook. Scary Business? Well, a bit, but nothing beyond the capabilities of an Excel Enthusiast!

PowerPivot, available on Excel 2010, truly Empowers you to capture the data you need, gain greater insight into the meaning of the data, and do so without overtaxing your system’s resources. With PowerPivot, you can:

• Load very large databases from Nearly Any Source

• Efficiently process huge amounts of data in mere seconds

• Work in a Disconnected Mode once your data is imported

• Leverage your Familiarity with Excel to work with the data

• Use the new PowerPivot Analytic Capabilities

• Utilize the Power of contemporary multi-core processors

PowerPivot: Not necessarily for everyone, but if you work for a large company and need a new way to Slice and Dice your data, download it for Free from www.PowerPivot.com and give it a try!

Next week: Back to the mainstream with a cool, easy technique that will give you options you never had.