Power View

Power View is now a feature of Microsoft Excel 2013, and is part of the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013 Enterprise Editions.

Power View is an interactive data exploration, visualization, and presentation experience that encourages intuitive ad-hoc reporting. Power View is a feature of Microsoft Excel 2013, and of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013 as part of the SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise Edition.

Power View has two versions:

i. Start Power View in Excel 2013. In Excel, Power View sheets are part of the Excel XLSX file.

ii. Create a Power View in SharePoint Server report. Power View reports in SharePoint Server are RDLX files

Both versions of Power View need Silverlight installed on the machine.

You can’t open a Power View RDLX file in Excel, or open an Excel XLSX file with Power View sheets in Power View in SharePoint. You also can’t copy charts or other visualizations from the RDLX file into the Excel workbook.

Data sources for Power View:

In Excel 2013, you can use data right in Excel as the basis for Power View in Excel and SharePoint. When you add tables and create relationships between them, Excel is creating a Data Model behind the scenes. A data model is a collection of tables and their relationships reflecting the real-world relationships between business functions and processes—for example, how Products relates to Inventory and Sales. You can continue modifying and enhancing that same data model in Power Pivot in Excel, to make a more sophisticated data model for Power View reports.

With Power View you can interact with data:

i. In the same Excel workbook as the Power View sheet.

ii. In data models in Excel workbooks published in a Power Pivot Gallery.

iii. In tabular models deployed to SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services (SSAS) instances.

iv. In multidimensional models on an SSAS server (if you’re using Power View in SharePoint Server).

Create charts and other visualizations:

In Power View, you can quickly create a variety of visualizations, from tables and matrices to pie, bar, and bubble charts and sets of multiple charts. For every visualization you want to create, start with a table, which you then convert easily to other visualizations to find one best illustrates your data. To create a table, click a table or field in the field list, or drag a field from the field list to the view. Power View draws the table in the view, displaying your actual data and automatically adding column headings.

To convert a table to other visualizations, click a visualization type on the Design tab. Power View only enables the charts and other visualizations that work best for that data in that table. For example, if Power View doesn’t detect any aggregated numeric values, then no charts are enabled.

Filter and highlight data:

Power View provides several ways to filter data. Power View uses the metadata in the underlying data model to understand the relationships between the different tables and fields in a workbook or report. Because of these relationships, you can use one visualization to filter and highlight all the visualizations in a sheet or view. Or you can display the filters area and define filters that apply to an individual visualization or to all the visualizations in a sheet or view. In Power View in SharePoint, you can leave the filter pane visible or hide it before switching to reading or full-screen mode.

Slicers:

Slicers in Excel enable you to compare and evaluate your data from different perspectives. Slicers in Power View are similar. When you have multiple slicers on a view and you select an entry in one slicer, that selection filters the other slicers in the view.

Sorting:

You can sort tables, matrices, bar and column charts, and sets of small multiples in Power View. You sort the columns in tables and matrices, the categories or numeric values in charts, and the multiple field or the numeric values in a set of multiples. In each case, you can sort ascending or descending either on attributes such as Product Name, or on numeric values such as Total Sales.