Excel Tip #30: Excel Services Visual Limitations – Displaying Images

As I mentioned in my original post, Exploring Excel 2013 as Microsoft’s BI Client, I will be posting tips regularly about using Excel 2013 and later.  Much of the content will be a result of my daily interactions with business users and other BI devs.  In order to not forget what I learn or discover, I write it down … here.  I hope you too will discover something new you can use.  Enjoy!

Introducing Brian Wright – Guest Blogger

Today, I am happy to announce that Brian will be joining DataOnWheels as a guest blogger. I have worked with Brian over the past couple of years and his Excel visualization skills are great. I look forward to his contributions to the Excel Tips series and other BI related topics. Thanks Brian.

Hello Data on Wheels Readers! Let’s start this blog post by letting you know a few things about myself. First, I am not a professional writer, blogger, or ever social guru, but I am passionate about what I do. I love data visualization. Watching boring data come to life in a visual report or dashboard is my “thing”. Secondly, when things don’t work the way I think they should, I become obsessed in finding out a way around it.

Images Are Not Displayed in Excel Services

That is what leads us to this blog post today. In the limited environment I work within, Excel Services is used quite often in our BI suite of tools. When I realized that the ever so important images I was adding in my Excel workbooks would not show on Excel Services, my obsession kicked in.

Here is the trick or hack. (Using the word hack makes me look much cooler in my kid’s eyes). Wherever you want your picture within your workbook, simply add a chart. Yes, you read correct, simply add a chart.

Using Charts to Display Images

The trick here is not to link the chart to any type of data at all. Just leave it blank. Right Click on the blank chart and navigate to “Format Chart Area”. Navigate to the fill area and select “Pattern or Texture Fill”.

Next, click on the File Button and select your image. Your image will now show as a background image in your chart. Save and then voila!

Once Excel Services displays your workbook, you will be pleasantly surprised to see your image right where you want it!

Boston BI User Group Meeting–Dashboard Design with Microsoft: Power BI vs Datazen (10/13/15)

Thanks for joining Anthony Martin (@SQLMartini) and I at the Boston BI User Group Meeting in October. During the session, we demo’d and built dashboards in Power BI Desktop and Datazen Publisher.

Power BI

www.powerbi.com

Couple of thoughts from our demo:

• Power BI is a way to get data, model data, and visualize it
• Power BI Desktop allows you to work with data on your PC
• Power BI is experiencing a lot of change – for example over 40 changes were applied in September 2015
• Power BI has an open API that allows you to customize the experience

Datazen

www.datazen.com

Couple of thoughts from our demo:

• Design first scenario – make it look good, then shape data to match
• Datazen publisher allows us to create dashboard for many different profiles
• Datazen handles custom shapes

Additional Training from Pragmatic Works

• Free Power BI Webinars
  • Creating Solutions with the New Power BI Desktop
  • Where Does Power BI Fit in Your Data Architecture-
  • Automating Power BI Creations
  • Introduction to the Power BI Designer
  • Power BI- Data Refresh and SSAS On-Premises Connectivity
  • Power Pivot 102- Advanced Power Pivot Modeling
  • Powering Up HDInsight with Power BI
• Free Datazen Webinars
  • Intro to Datazen- Dashboard Design and Development
  • Intro to Datazen- Setup Your Datazen Environment

Questions from the Session

Can you use links in Datazen to support drillthrough?

Yes. You can find more information here: Drill-throughs to Other Dashboards or Custom URLs.

Power BI API Development

You have the ability customize Power BI. Check out the contest winners to get some ideas of what is possible.

Details about the solutions can be found on the Power BI blog: http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Best-Visual-Contest/con-p/best_visual_contest/tab/entries.

You can find more about custom visuals here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/custom-visuals.

Thanks again for joining us.

Excel Tip #29: Forcing Slicers to Filter Each Other when Using CUBE Functions

As I mentioned in my original post, Exploring Excel 2013 as Microsoft’s BI Client, I will be posting tips regularly about using Excel 2013 and later.  Much of the content will be a result of my daily interactions with business users and other BI devs.  In order to not forget what I learn or discover, I write it down … here.  I hope you too will discover something new you can use.  Enjoy!

Scenario

You have went to all the trouble to build out a good set of slicers which allow you to “drill” down to details based on selections. In my example, I have created a revenue distribution table using cube formulas such as:

=CUBEVALUE(“ThisWorkbookDataModel”,$B6, Slicer_Date, Slicer_RestaurantName, Slicer_Seat_Number, Slicer_TableNumber)

Each cell with data references all the slicers. When working with pivot tables or pivot charts, the slicers will hide values that have no matching reference. However, since we are using cube formulas the slicers have no ability to cross reference. For example, when I select a date and a table, I expect to see my seat list reduce in size, but it does not. All of my slicers are set up to hide options when data is available. There are two examples below. In the first, you can see that the seats are not filtered. However, this may be expected. In the second example, we filter a seat which should cause the tables to hide values and it does not work as expected either.

As you can see in the second example, we are able to select a seat that is either not related to the selected table or has no data on that date. Neither of these scenarios is user friendly and does not direct our users to see where the data matches.

Solving the Problem with a “Hidden” Pivot Table

To solve this issue, we are going to use a hidden pivot table. In most cases we would add this to a separate worksheet and then hide the sheet from the users. For sake of our example, I am going to put the pivot table in plain sight for the examples.

Step 1: Add a Pivot Table with the Same Connection as the Slicers

In order for this to work, you need to add a pivot table using the same connection you used with the slicers. The value you use in the pivot table, should only be “empty” or have no matches when that is the expected result. You want to make sure that you do not unintentionally filter out slicers when data exists. In my example, I will use the Total Ticket Amount as the value. That will cover my scenario. In most cases, I recommend looking for a count type value that will always have data if there is a potential match of any kind.

Step 2: Connect the Slicers to the Pivot Table

Using the Apply Filters button on the Pivot Table ribbon, you need to select all the slicers you want to interact with each other.

Once these changes are applied, you will see how my data changed.

Now, let’s test this for real. We will keep the date and table, but now we will see that the other slicers are now filtered to match the data that is available.

As you can see, the solution is fairly simple, but not intuitive. You will be able to create more creative dashboards with this technique. Keep in mind this issue is primarily a problem when using cube formulas in your Excel dashboard.

Until next time…

Join me Tues, May 12 – Consumption Based Architecture for BI

Join me on Tuesday, May 12 as I discuss consumption based architecture for BI Solutions with Pragmatic Works.

On May 6, 2015May 6, 2015 By SteveIn Business Intelligence, Consumption Based Archtitecture

Building Your Data Team’s Make Up and Culture

Join Adam Jorgensen and Pragmatic works to learn about Building Your Data Team’s Make Up and Culture on Tuesday, May 5.