Importing Data into Power Pivot

Abstract

One of the first steps in creating the Power Pivot model is importing data. Traditionally, when creating a BI solution based on an OLAP cube, you need to import the data into the data warehouse and then load it into the cube. It can take quite a while to get the data incorporated into the cube and available for your consumption. This is one of the greatest strengths of the Power Pivot model. You can easily and quickly combine data from a variety of sources into your model. The data sources can be from relational databases, text files, web services, and OLAP cubes, just to name a few. This chapter shows you how to incorporate data from a variety of these sources into a Power Pivot model.