Exercise 1: Exploring the Power View Design Environment

Task 1 – Uploading the PowerPivot Workbook

In this task, you will upload a PowerPivot workbook to a PowerPivot Gallery. This workbook contains the model you will work with in Power View and is the same model that we optimized in the SQL11UPD06-HOL-04 Hands-On Lab.

1. To open Internet Explorer, click the Start button, and then select All Programs | Internet Explorer.
2. Navigate to the SharePoint site collection created during setup.

3. In the Quick Launch (located on the left), click PowerPivot Gallery.

   Note:

   Even if the Tailspin Toys Sales Model document already exists in the PowerPivot Gallery, make sure to overwrite it with the one provided for this lab.

4. On the Library Tools Documents tab, inside the New group, click Upload Document.

   Figure 1

   Uploading the PowerPivot Workbook

5. In the PowerPivot Gallery – Upload Document window, click Browse.
6. In the Choose File to Upload window, navigate to the Assets folder located in the Source folder for this lab.
7. Select the Tailspin Toys Sales.xlsx file, and then click Open.
8. In the PowerPivot Gallery – Upload Document window, click OK.
9. Notice that the document has been loaded into the gallery.

Task 2 – Exploring the Power View Designer

In this task, you will launch the Power View designer from the PowerPivot workbook uploaded in the previous task. Then you will explore the Power View designer.

1. To launch the Power View designer, in the top right corner of the document panel, click the second icon.

   Figure 2

   Launching the Power View Designer

2. In the top left corner of the Power View Web page, notice the Save, Undo, Redo and Refresh quick access buttons.

   Figure 3

   Exploring the Quick Access Buttons

   Note:

   The common shortcuts – Ctrl-Z to undo and Ctrl-Y to redo – are also supported.

3. On File ribbon tab, notice that the save function can also be accessed from there. In addition, print, export to PowerPoint and help functionality is also available.

   Figure 4

   Locating the File Ribbon Tab

   Note:

   A Power View report is saved to a SharePoint library using a variation of Report Definition Language (RDL). It is saved as a document with an .rdlx extension.

4. On the Home ribbon tab, notice the functionality for clipboard operations, inserting text boxes, adding new views, text and number formatting, alignment, toggling between reading mode and full screen views, and opening the filters area.

   Note:

   Additional context-driven tabs will be available when configuring data regions within the report.

5. The large pane beneath the ribbon is the report designer. This is a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) designer that supports an interactive design and data exploration experience.

   Note:

   If you want to maximize the report design area, you can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking any tab. To maximize the ribbon, simply double-click any tab again.

   In Internet Explorer, you can also press F11 to maximize the browser window area.

   Also, if you need to zoom in or out of the report, Internet Explorer includes this capability.

6. To the right of the report designer is the Field List. Notice that it exposes the tabular BI Semantic Model that consists of a list of tables. Within each table is a list of fields.

7. In the Field List, to reveal the Product table’s fields, click the small triangle to the left of the table name.

   Figure 5

   Expanding the Product Table

8. Notice the list of fields, and the various icons that denote the different type of fields.

   Note:

   The icons () you see next to the Photo, ProductSKU and ProductName fields indicate that they represent values at the lowest granularity of the table. Model developers can mark fields as label fields to help Power View users understand that these fields can be used to see all entries of the table, and to ensure they group appropriately.
   Figure 6

   Reviewing the Product Table’s Fields

9. To collapse the Product table, click the small triangle to the left of the table name.
10. Finally, below the Field List, notice the Fields drop zone. To add and configure a table, you can simply select, or drag, table fields into the Fields drop zone.