Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Bible

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Part IX: Business Intelligence

■ (^) The workbook’s content is static unless the data is refreshed from the underlying
data sources.
To overcome these and other challenges, Microsoft released a dedicated Analysis Services
engine based on the xVelocity engine that integrates with SharePoint 2010 called SQL
Server PowerPivot for SharePoint.
SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint enables you to deploy and manage PowerPivot work-
books in SharePoint to special libraries called the PowerPivot Gallery. The main benefi ts of
deploying PowerPivot workbooks to a SharePoint PowerPivot Gallery include:
■ (^) Centralized and secure storage
■ Less storage wasted by avoiding multiple copies of the same workbook sent out to
user mailboxes
■ Ability to generate workfl ows and alerts when a PowerPivot workbook is
modifi ed
■ Scheduling of automatic data refresh
The scheduling of automatic data refresh is a nice feature because it enables you to keep
the PowerPivot workbook up to date with no manual intervention. For example, you can
schedule a data refresh every night so that users always see the previous end-of-business-
day transactions.
To deploy a BI Semantic Model to SharePoint, you need to deploy the PowerPivot workbook
to a PowerPivot Gallery by following these steps:

1. Open the PowerPivot workbook in Excel. In this example, use the PowerPivot work-
   book called AWPowerPivot.xlsx created in the previous section.


2. Click File ➪ Save & Send; then click the Save to SharePoint option.


3. Click the Save As button, and type the full URL of the SharePoint PowerPivot
   Gallery along with the name of the workbook in the File Name section, For example,
   http://sql2012rtm/PowerPivot Gallery/AWPowerPivot.


4. Click the Save button. The PowerPivot workbook is now deployed to the SharePoint
   2010 PowerPivot Gallery.

Managing Automatic Data Refresh of PowerPivot

Workbooks in SharePoint 2010

As mentioned previously, one of the biggest advantages of deploying PowerPivot workbooks

to a SharePoint 2010 PowerPivot Gallery is the ability to schedule automatic refresh of the

data in the BI Semantic Model.

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