Category: Reporting & Analytics

Advice and techniques regarding report creation and analytics e.g. slicers, ranking, driving from a range etc.

Icon-based Navigation and Filtering in XLCubed

XLCubed/ / Dashboard Design, Reporting & Analytics

Version 9 introduced an embedded icon library and XL3PictureLink, which together make the creation of icon-led navigation and filtering simple.

XL3PictureLink provides the same parameterised navigation capabilities which the XL3Link() formula has done for years, but with an added visual aspect. Users can choose from one of the thousands of icons provided, in any colour, or choose a custom image as required.

The images can then be used as an intuitive way for users to navigate to another sheet within the report, while passing a dynamic parameter to ensure the data is in-context. Alternately, where there are a small number of selection choices they can be used as visually appealing slicers.

Insert PictureLink is available from the Insert Formula tab on the XLCubed ribbon.

Click the drop-down and search for an appropriate image from the picture library – you can also specify the colour by clicking the Colour drop-down.

You then select the required image, and enter the destination cell location in the “Link to” box – this is the location where the user will be taken when they click on the image (can be the same sheet or a different sheet in the report).

You can also parameterise the image – “Value” is the content  which will be inserted into the cell specified in “Range to Set” (can be text or a cell reference).

To edit a Picturelink once it has been inserted, hold down Shift and then click the image.

Note that PictureLinks do not need to pass parameters – they can used as a simple link to another location:

Lastly, on web reports XL3PictureLink can also be used instead of the standard ‘Submit’ toolbar button.

There is more information on that here.

The Missing Link in Excel BI

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

When viewing a high level summary report or dashboard, users often want to delve into more detail on a specific area. In some cases that may be a drill down, in many others it may be to a different view of the data or to an entirely different report. In the XLCubed example below, users can link from any one of the summary KPIs to a detail report showing product level detail for the selected KPI.

This is a fairly common requirement in reporting. In a standard Excel context, it would be easy to add a hyperlink formula to jump across to another sheet, but that’s just part of what’s needed. In this example we need to link in the context of the selected KPI, otherwise we would need a separate sheet for product detail on each KPI, far from ideal, especially in row-dynamic reports.

This type of limitation is one reason why you’ll often see workbooks with huge numbers of worksheets, which become unwieldy and horrible to maintain.

We need hyperlink functionality but also an ability to pass parameters (and of course a way for the pivot table to accept the incoming parameter…).

XLCubed makes it straightforward for non-technical users to build this type of contextual linking into reports through the XL3Link() formula.  XL3Link has arguments which determine what is displayed in the cell, where it hyperlinks to, and what cell(s) parameters are passed from and to.

Unlike Pivot tables, XLCubed Grids and formulae can reference cell content as a filter, so the data on the ‘link to’ worksheet can update as soon as a new value is passed into the driving cell, retrieving the relevant data from whichever data source is involved.

The beauty of the approach is its simplicity. It’s something which most users can get to grips with quickly, and opens up huge flexibility in joined up reporting.

Last but not least, web and mobile deployment takes a matter of seconds. The report is published to XLCubed Web and from there browser and mobile app based users have access to the same report with the same chain of thought links. The links can be to different content in the same report, to a separate report, or a url to another application or website.

 

(This piece revisits content from our blog  from several years back the missing link part 1   . The business requirement it addresses is now even more common, and still one not handled in native Excel.)

Dynamic Tooltips / Mouseover

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

Tooltips can be a useful addition to reporting, often used to display additional context or information which you don’t want to have permanently visible in the main body of the report. When the user sees a value of interest they simply hover over the cell and a popup displays the additional detail. The additional information can be anything required, as long as it can be retrieved from an Excel cell (or direct from the cube). Examples could include some textual information or sales for the same period last year.

Implementing this in XLCubed reports is straightforward, albeit not immediately obvious. Tooltips are implemented using the XL3Link() formula, most commonly used for in-context navigation within a report, where the focus is moved from one sheet to another while passing a parameter. A special parameter, introduced in version 8.1, extends XL3Link() for tooltips as explained below.

The syntax for XL3Link is:

XL3Link( [LinkLocation], [FriendlyName], [LinkType], [Range1], [Value1],…, [Range13], [Value13] )

LinkLocation: where the focus would normally jump to on clicking the cell. This can be left blank if you just want a tooltip.

Friendlyname: what is displayed in the cell. This could be static text (“i”) or an Excel formula referencing other cells in the workbook as needed.

LinkType: can be left blank for Tooltips.

To specify a tooltip, set Range1 to the value “XL3Tooltip”, and Value1 to be the content you want displayed in the tooltip. Value1 can be static text or can reference other cells as required, which means you can display other values which are also dynamically retrieved from the cube based on slicer selections etc. If the report is variable in length, the formula can be added into an XLCubed grid calculation and the Value1 parameter could use a vlookup to ensure a match on the appropriate data element.

The simple example below shows the basic approach, and the result also works when published to XLCubed Web.

 

s1

The extended example below shows combining several additional data fields. The line breaks are achieved using Alt + Enter.

s2

Thanks to our colleague Norbert Engelhardt at pmOne who blogged on this point recently in German and prompted this piece, basically an English version of the original:

XLCubed Insights #4 – Mouseover Funktion in XLCubed Berichten

 

 

Calculated fields are not available in an OLAP-based Pivot Table …

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

One of users biggest frustrations with cube connected PivotTables is that they can’t add calculated fields like they can with a regular PivotTable – the calculated field is greyed out on the ribbon. Data in the Pivot Table can be referenced elsewhere in Excel, but that makes the final report largely static in shape. It means users can’t add even the simplest of calculations into a report where the number of rows or columns may vary, and can lead to BI developers being asked to add every calculation imaginable into Analysis Services.

The good news is that XLCubed Grids (described by some as PivotTables on steroids) let users add any Excel formula directly into the grid. The calculations are entered as standard Excel formulae, so users already know the syntax. All Excel formuale are supported, and the calculation is cube-aware once entered as shown in the video below.

We also let users easily create workbook level calculated members and sets, but in our experience what 90% of users actually want is to be able to add a simple calculated column into a PivotTable (or in our case a grid). They’re really not asking for much, and we’re happy to help.

We can also help where PivotTable users are experiencing performance issues, hierarchy selection restrictions, “PivotTable will overwrite” messages, etc. We keep the Excel flexibility users love, and lose the PivotTable restrictions they loathe. See our PivotTable comparison for more detail on some of the common user problems we address.

Report Flexibility, with Control

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

Sometimes we want to let report users modify the structure of a report but to govern exactly what they can and can’t do. While Grids can be restricted at a granular level to enable and disable functionality, that approach still requires some degree of product knowledge by the user.

XLCubed provides the XL3SetProperty() formula, which enables manipulation of many of the core objects such as Grids, Slicers and Small Multiples. It means report users can have simple slicer selections to change the structure of a report, what’s being displayed in a chart, or to vary the chart type. It gives flexibility within the report, but requires no product knowledge from the end user which can be crucial when delivering web reports on a widespread basis.

One common example of usage is where the hierarchy to be viewed in a grid needs to change based on the measure a user selects (depending on the structure of the cube some measures may not be applicable for all hierarchies). Typically that would need to be handled in two Grids, but we can use XL3SetProperty to bring this together, and also to give user choice on the associated Small Multiple Chart view.

The final published report is shown below:

 

S1

 

If the user selects an “Internet” measure, we show Customer Geography on rows, whereas a “Reseller” measure should show Reseller Type on rows. The same logic applies to the Small Multiple chart. In the screenshot below, the user has selected Reseller Gross Profit as the measure, and ‘Stacked Column’ as the chart type. You can see that the hierarchy on rows has been switched, as has the split within the individual charts, allowing the user to easily vary their view of the data with simple button selectors.

 

S2

 

This is implemented through the following key points:

  • A lookup table in Excel to determine what hierarchy is applicable for each measure
  • An Excel list showing the available chart types – this is used in the Chart Type slicer
    • The chart slicer outputs its selection into cell $AG$10
  • The measure slicer is linked directly to the grid and the small multiple, but also outputs its selection to an Excel cell ($A$B4)
  • A vlookup determines which hierarchy to use based on the selected measure
  • Three XL3SetProperty() formulae now control what is displayed based on user selections:
    • $AB$7 – sets the grid rows
    • $AB$8 – sets the small multiple columns
    • $AB$7 – sets the chart type

 

Formulae

 

The approach gives a deep level of access to the key XLCubed reporting objects, and enables controlled flexibility within web and mobile-delivered reports. No programming is needed, just a mid-level understanding of Excel itself, and XLCubed.

This is just one example of what the approach can achieve – it’s really limited only by imagination. See XL3SetProperty() for more detail, or contact us if you’d like the example workbook.

Cell-Linked Decomposition view

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

In displaying the key and often high level information required, many reports raise lots of additional questions in terms of why a specific number is ‘too high’ or ‘too low’, or how the number is comprised. XLCubed provides lots of ways for power users to further explore and visualise this, but in this blog we’ll take a look at one of the simplest and easiest to implement within a report – a cell-linked decomposition view, or a dynamic breakout.

The scenario below is a fairly straightforward Regional Sales report which will be deployed to management through XLCubed Web. When users click on a sales number for a specific region and month we want to provide them with a ranking to show the top 10 products which were contributing to that revenue. We provide a number of ways to achieve that but this is by far the simplest:

Select any of the values returned in the Grid and then either use the ‘Breakout’ option on the Grid Ribbon, or right click and choose XLCubed – Breakout Value. You now specify where to position the resulting breakout, which hierarchy to decompose the number by, at what level, and how many ranked items to show.

BODialog

 

In this example we’ve chosen the top 10 Products at the SubCategory level. The result is shown below. The green cell in the original grid is the cell the user has selected and is ‘tracked’, so when another cell in the grid is selected the breakout updates accordingly, meaning users can easily explore the makeup of their data.

 

BO Result1

 

The breakout result can be further decomposed by running another breakout, this time on the product subcategory. In the published example below we’ve run an additional breakout showing the top ranked products in the selected subcategory.

WebBO

 

The report user can now simply click on the values which are of interest to see the associated product sales breakdown, and it’s something which can be built in minutes by the report designer.

Finding a needle in a haystack – Member Searching made easy!

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

Searching for specific elements of large hierarchies can be a real pain in many Analysis Services client tools, and we often hear of it as a major frustration in Pivot Tables where dialogs can be cumbersome and prone to locking up.

XLCubed has both a Quicksearch and an Advanced search in the Member Selector, but in this blog we’ll show how to link the search dynamically to an Excel cell (or a web entry cell on a published report) and to retain the search as a dynamic part of the report rather than a point in time selection.

Let’s say we are a retailer with a large product hierarchy running to tens or hundreds of thousands of products. The naming convention means groups of products can be searched by a partial match on their name, and as a report designer we’d like the users to be able to type the search in as quickly and easily as possible rather than go into a custom search dialog. Here’s how:

Below is the final result in Excel, a simple list-report where the user just types the text they want to search the hierarchy for, and matching products are shown on the rows of the report.

Search1

 

We start with a regular grid, putting Product Categories on rows, and then in the Member Selector we can either select a specific level or set of data to be searched, or go to the Advanced tab and select the whole hierarchy as shown below.

EditHierarchy

 

 

In the advanced dialog, click on the binoculars:

Binoculars

 

to add a search, and then in the dialog below you can either type a search term directly in the ‘Search Value’ or reference an Excel cell, in this case $C$3. ‘Search By’ allows you to specify exact match, begins, contains etc.

Search2

 

At this point it’s worth mentioning that while in this case we are just searching by the name of the product (MEMBER_CAPTION) we could also chose to search by any member properties which exist.

So having done that we simply type the search string into $C$3 and we get the matching products straight away – couldn’t be easier.

To make this available for web deployed reports there are two additional steps:

  • Make $C$3 available for web input. To do that right click on the cell and choose Format cells, and then on the protection tab uncheck ‘locked’.
  • Add a search or refresh hyperlink or button so that the web user can refresh the report when they’ve typed the search term. This can be handled using either XL3Link() or XL3Picturelink and the process is described in our previous blog.

The web version is shown below:

Websearch

Click & Submit!

XLCubed/ / Publication & Distribution, Reporting & Analytics

We’ve had a few queries recently where customers want to provide web reports with a number of slicer choices, and to have the report refresh just once when all selections are made, rather than the default refresh after each selection. It can be achieved in a couple of ways in XLCubed, read on for more…

The key to this approach work is the ‘Wait for Submit on Web’ option on the slicer properties, shown below on the Behaviour tab of the slicer designer:

sub1

This means when the slicer is changed it does not refresh the report straight away, and if you set this on multiple slicers users can then press the ‘submit changes’ button on the toolbar shown below after they’ve made their selections.

sub2

 

Alternatively, and to make it more obvious for web users you can have them click on some text or an image in the report itself to call the refresh, as in the examples below.

I’ve created a simple report below with five different slicers.  Note the “Refresh“ to the right, created using XL3Link().

sub3

 

The XL3Link statement is available from the Insert Formula menu on the XLCubed ribbon:

 

sub4

 

It’s most often used to move the focus to another area of the report while passing parameters to enabled linked-analysis in a multi-sheet report. However, here we can use it to call a refresh.

We can leave the “Link to” parameter blank, and also the Target and Value cells. The last parameter, LinkType calls SubmitChanges on the web, so the syntax will look like below (you will need to update the XL3Link statement to include this parameter):

=XL3Link(,”Refresh”,3)

There is more guidance on the general use of XL3Link on our Wiki at: http://www.xlcubed.com/help/XL3Link

So when we publish our report to our web server we can change the slicer choices as required but it’s only when we click the Refresh button that the report is refreshed.

sub5

 

If we’d prefer to display an image for the user to click on rather than text we can use XL3PictureLink in a similar way.  When using XL3PictureLink we can display any picture – we’ve used a generic refresh icon but it could easily be a more corporate-applicable image:

sub6

XL3PictureLInk is also available from the Insert Formula menu on the XLCubed ribbon:

sub7

Browse in the window above to locate the Picture file to insert and remember to check the Perform a Submit Changes on Web box.

There is more guidance on XL3PictureLink on our Wiki at: http://www.xlcubed.com/help/Picture_Links

This is the published report using XL3PictureLink, the user makes the required selections and clicks refresh.sub8

 

So it’s as easy as that – two ways to ensure that your users can change multiple slicers on web-published reports before calling the refresh, and without you having to direct them to the standard submit changes on web button.

Workbook slicers – all for one and one for all!

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

So this is our second blog on the new features of XLCubed v8 – today we’re going to run through workbook slicers.

Workbook slicers allow the user to create the slicers at the workbook level so that they can be displayed for any/all sheets.

There’s a slicer pane which can be arranged horizontally or vertically and stays in place when you navigate to another sheet.  This means that if you have a multi-sheet workbook you only need to define one set of slicers.  These can then configured to be shown or hidden for individual sheets as required.

Turn the slicer pane on by selecting Workbook slicers from the XLCubed ribbon, Slicers tab:

 

ws1

Within the slicer pane there’s an Add Slicer button – this brings up the standard design form for adding slicers.

The Edit layout button brings up the window below.  It allows you to configure the order in which slicers will appear on the pane, which sheets they will be visible on and the padding between individual slicers.  You can also set a background fill colour from here.

ws2

The screenshot above shows that the Date.Calendar slicer is available on a number of sheets.  Selecting a slicer choice on one sheet will refresh the other sheets where the slicer is also available:

ws7

Once added, you link workbook slicers to your report in the same way as embedded slicers.  You can link directly to grids and other XLCubed objects and output their selection to Excel cell locations for use by formulae.

Their positioning on the web is fixed but if you find the slicers are taking up too much screen space you can make your slicer selections and then use this icon to toggle the Slicer Pane off:

ws4

Custom drill paths for Analysis Services reporting

XLCubed/ / Reporting & Analytics

Any business report will answer a predefined set of questions, but it will often give rise to many additional queries and chains of thought as the user wants to explore any oddities or anomalies in more depth.

As a report designer you want to provide flexibility in your reports. You may want to create a customised drill down behaviour which you know is how the report users naturally think of the data. Similarly giving users the ability to ‘drill across’ into other hierarchies is a great way of providing chain of thought interactivity, but the sheer complexity and number of hierarchies in many corporate cubes these days means a vanilla ‘drill across’ may be problematic. In the hands of users relatively unfamiliar with the data model drill across can be a shortcut to a support ticket:

  • What is the difference between hierarchy ‘a’ & hierarchy ‘b’?
  • What is hierarchy ‘c’?
  • When I drill across into hierarchy ‘d’ it hangs?
    • that’ll be the 8 million skus in the attribute hierarchy you’ve picked…

We recently worked closely with a customer to implement a solution in XLCubed v7.6 for exactly these types of issue. Many thanks to Thomas Zeutschler at Henkel AG for the inspiration!

Flex Report extends a concept which Henkel had developed in-house to deliver report level flexibility of the drill path, while retaining control over what the user can do. Non-technical report developers can easily define the drilling behaviour for a report (for example from Country -> Promotion -> Product Category), and also to provide controlled ‘Drill Across’ options where the users have a choice of 5 or 6 meaningful levels to drill into, rather than the 200 which may exist in the cube. The difference in usability can be stark, as in the example below.

ExpandTo

The end result is report consumers with guided and controlled flexibility in data exploration. This type of reporting can be delivered from a potentially broad group of business users who have the flexibility to develop sophisticated reporting applications without the need to go back to IT each time they want to create a slightly modified drill path. We are finding that both the deliverable reports and the report development process itself resonates with many businesses. Take a look at this video for an introduction: Flex Reporting