Can Powerpivot be used to present data without pivoting it?

Question

This isn't a coding question, so much as it is a functionality question.

I'm a bit new to Powerpivot and I'm attempting to use Powerpivot as a way to deliver reports to my team rather than SSRS because in our company, the only SSRS ReportServer I can use is officially "owned" by a team that is hostile to my team.

I have written numerous SQL ad-hoc queries that we are using for reports in SSRS, but been I've trying to migrate them to Powerpivot. For some of the reports, I've been able to paste the SQL query into the powerpivot window and make a pivottable out of these. However, I'd like to be able have some workbooks just contain the results of the query (they don't deal with numbers, as some of them are a data dump or a large collection of text strings), so that they look like the powerpivot window's dataset, but that they can be filtered, sorted, etc. Is this possible, or can I only use pivottables? I can't seem to find a way that I can just get Excel to directly display what is in the Powerpivot window without pivoting it - I know it is called Power*pivot* but because the PP window just shows the query results itself, I'm hoping there is a way to use it as an alternative to SSRS.

Also is there anyway to check if our Sharepoint server is capable of running Powerpivot so that I can deploy reports there for users to use without having Powerpivot installed on their computers other than by saving it to Sharepoint and seeing if a user can run it? If not, how difficult would it be to have an IT team update the SP server so that it can handle PP?

Any help is appreciated, as I'm in a position where I cannot contact IT or project management, and I can't raise any red flags with IT/BI/PM. Thank you very much for your time.

Answer 1

It sounds like you just want to get the results of your SQL query directly into an Excel spreadsheet, where you can use the Excel filter and sort capability. It doesn't appear that you want to use any of the functionality that PowerPivot provides, so you can achieve what you described by using an existing Excel component, Microsoft Query. It's a bit of a clunky old interface but it works. Here's some instructions to use:

In an Excel spreadsheet, click on the Data tab, select the "From Other Sources" button on the Get External Data area of the ribbon.

Select "From Microsoft Query"

On the "Choose Data Source" click OK to create a new data source

On the "Create new data source" window select the appropriate driver and database details for your data source

If using a SQL Server data source, don't select anything for the optional step 4 (select a default table).

Click OK to return to the Choose Data Source window, then OK again to select the new data source.

You're now prompted to choose columns for your query, but if you already have some SQL then click Cancel - this will display a prompt to continue editing in Microsoft Query - click Yes.

The Add Tables window pops up, click Close

You're now in the Microsoft Query interface. If you click on the SQL button, you can paste in your SQL. Click the Return Data button to run the query, the results will be displayed in an Excel worksheet.

Once this is set up, you just need to click "Refresh Data" on the Data tab to re-run the query and update the spreadsheet.