This document provides an overview and introduction to Power View, Microsoft's ad hoc reporting and data visualization tool. It discusses how Power View allows for analysis and exploration of data in a browser using Silverlight. The document outlines how to access and import data into Power View reports from various sources like SQL Server, Excel, and SharePoint lists. It also demonstrates Power View's abilities like filtering, advanced visualizations, and properties for customizing reports. Finally, it discusses Power View's relationship to SharePoint and potential future directions.

1. Power View: Analysis and Visualization
for Your Application’s Data
Andrew J. Brust
Founder and CEO
Level: Intermediate

2. Meet Andrew
• 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

3. My New Blog (bit.ly/bigondata)

4. Read All About It!

5. Agenda
• Intro
• Basic Use
• Data Acquisition
• Filtering
• Advanced Visualizations
• Advanced Features

6. 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

7. 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

8. In the browser,
Power View! in Silverlight
Ribbon, like Excel
Variety of
visualizations
and data formats
Field list, like Excel
Data regions pane,
like Excel

9. View Modes
Maximize one
chart,
fit report to
window, put whole
report
in Reading Mode
or
Full Screen
Create multiple pages
(views)

10. Power View Basics

11. BISM: A Column-Oriented Store
• Imagine, instead of:
Employee ID Age Income
1 43 90000
2 38 100000
3 35 100000
• You have:
Employee ID 1 2 3
Age 43 38 35
Income 90000 100000 100000
• 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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.

15. Power View Data
Acquisition

16. Constraining Your Data In
Power 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

17. Power View Filtering

18. Multipliers
• Multiple charts within a chart, in columns,
rows, or a matrix
– Horizontal and vertical multipliers
• Allows for visualizing 1 or 2 additional
dimensions

19. 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

20. Power View Advanced
Visualizations

21. Perspectives
Default Aggregations Special Advanced Mode
BISM Advanced Modeling Reporting
properties
Hierarchies
Hide specific
columns and
tables
Measures
KPIs

22. 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

23. Advanced Modeling
and Properties

24. 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)

25. Non-SharePoint-Dependent
Alternatives
• Dundas Dashboard
• Tableau
• .NET data viz components from Telerik,
DevExpress, ComponentOne, Infragistics
and…
• Reporting Services…

26. Data Visualization in SSRS

27. 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

28. 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

29. Thank you
• andrew.brust@bluebadgeinsights.com
• @andrewbrust on Twitter
• Want to get the free “Redmond Roundup
Plus?”
– Text “bluebadge” to 22828