If you get an error trying to create chained relationships in PowerPivot (i.e. Customers - Orders - OrderDetails), there is a known issue with a possible workaround. The item is described on Connect, but here is the issue and the workaround: ISSUE: A  Read more

This topic is general and not related to a specific feature of PowerPivot. In the way it is designed today, when data are imported from a SSAS cube into PowerPivot, the dimensionality of the original cube is lost and a flat table is imported as the result  Read more

Every measure imported from a SSAS cube is imported as a Text column instead of as a Numeric column. This is very annoying because users are used to use SSAS data with rich metadata, and a measure is usually numeric. Moreover, the standard aggregation  Read more

If you write direct MDX queries using SSAS 2005/2008 as a PowerPivot data source, it is better if you prepare your MDX query by using another editor. For example, write and test your MDX query by using SQL Server Management Studio and then copy &  Read more

The query designer in PowerPivot has a few limitations that require the manual modification of the MDX query to get data that are often needed to create a PowerPivot model that compares data from cube with data from other sources (like Excel workbooks  Read more

A general problem of any cube is the way PowerPivot handles calculated members. From a technical point of view, it is absolutely correct that PowerPivot imports the result of a calculated member evaluated at the granularity of the query result. However,  Read more

Companies that have cubes on Analysis Services 2000 and still have not completed a migration to SSAS 2005/2008 might be interested in connecting to AS2000 from PowerPivot. Unfortunately, there are several limitations about using AS2000 as a data source  Read more

In the next 2 to 3 weeks I will publish a few blog posts about importing data to PowerPivot using Analysis Services as a data source. This is something I studied a lot during the beta test of PowerPivot and it is not a topic that has a place in the upcoming  Read more

A couple of weeks ago the first version of Vizubi has been released. It is an Excel AddIn with many of the features of PowerPivot, but also with a few important differences. I made some tests and in this post I give my first impression of the product.  Read more

Now that Office 2010 has been released, many people will start looking for resources to start learning PowerPivot. Of course, the book I’m writing will be helpful when it will be published (September 2010), but you can also start with some online content  Read more