Use case session presented at SharePoint Saturday event in Toronto (2015-Sep-19): (A) Your Excel PowerPivot model is deployed to SharePoint. (B) Your BISM data connector to this (A) Excel file is created in SharePoint as well. And on the top of all this you create (C) a PowerView report that uses this (B) BISM data connector that you've just created. It will be a trivial manual job to move all those A, B, C to a different environment and change all related settings in SharePoint for a single report afterwards. But what if you have too many PowerPivot/PowerView items that you want to deploy to UAT and then to Prod environment. Let's explore how PowerShell can help us to automate this process (we won't be talking about deployment automation to SharePoint, but rather how we can automatically prepare PowerPivot/PowerView files for SharePoint deployment).

1. Rayis Imayev
Dawn InfoTek Inc.
Twitter: @RayisImayev; Email: rimayev@gmail.com

2. GOLDRAFFLESILVE
R
PLATINU
M

3. Data modeling
Visualization
3

4. 4
2010 Add-on in Excel 2010
support in SharePoint 2010
2013 Built-in feature in Excel 2013
Enriched support in SharePoint 2013
2016 More improvements in Excel 2016
To be available in SharePoint 2016 later

5. 5
2010 Addition to SharePoint 2010
2013 Built-in feature in Excel 2013
Enriched support in SharePoint 2013
2016 Turned off by default in Excel 2016
To be available in SharePoint 2016 later

6. 6

7.  PowerPivot model
formats format are
different
 You can upgrade
your model from
2010 to 2013
 Mixed
environment is not
advised
7

8. A. Excel PowerPivot in SharePoint (.xlsx file)
B. BISM connection to (A) PowerPivot model (.rsds file)
C. SharePoint PowerView report based on (B) connection (.rdlx file)
8
(A) Excel PowerPivot model (B) BISM data connection (C) SharePoint PowerView report

9. 9

10. 1. Replace PowerPivot model with a SSAS Tabular database
2. Update current BISM connection
3. And existent PowerView will continue working
10
(A) Excel PowerPivot model (B) BISM data connection (C) SharePoint PowerView report(A) Tabular SSAS database

11. 1. PowerPivot model from Excel 2013
2. PowerView pulls data though a BISM connection
3. And all these elements reside in SharePoint 2013
11
(A) Excel PowerPivot model (B) BISM data connection (C) SharePoint PowerView report

12. PowerPivot model is created
It needs to be uploaded to UAT & PROD SharePoint
environment
12
Excel PowerPivot model
UAT
PROD

13. scarier!
Army of PowerPivot models
A “few” more environments to deploy
13
Excel PowerPivot models
UAT
PROD
DIT
SIT

14. 14
Ask someone
Or
Write a code

15.  Workbook.RefreshAll
 Almost no settings to
change
15

16. 16
Changes are not
saved back to Excel
PowerPivot file in
SharePoint.

17. 17
Excel PowerPivot model in
SharePoint
Transformation
in SharePoint
Use / Interaction

18. 18
PowerPivotModel(.xlsx).zip..xlmodelitem.data file

19. 19
1) Item.data file is an backup file of SSAS tabular database and we can
restore this item.data (item.abf) file to a tabular SSAS server database.
2) Then we can change settings of the newly restored database (along
with its connection strings).
3) And save it back to our Excel file.
And
PowerShell
can do this all!

20. 1. Scan through a folder for Excel files
2. Rename .xlsx file to .zip file
3. Unzip .zip file to a model folder
4. Take item.data file and rename it to item.abf file
5. Connect to a SSAS Tabular server
6. Run XMLA command to restore item.abf archive file to a
tabular database on server
7. Run XMLA command to update required database
connection strings
8. Run XMLA command to backup tabular database back to
item.abf
9. Rename item.abf file to item.data file
10. Copy modified item.data file to the model folder
11. Archive model folder to .zip file
12. Rename .zip file to .xlsx file
20

21. 21
http://datanrg.blogspot.ca/2015/06/updating-powerpivot-model-and-powerview.html

22. 22

23. Thank you!
Toronto Enterprise Collaboration User Group
Change Management, Governance, SharePoint, Office 365,
Yammer, PowerBI, etc
http://www.meetup.com/TSPBUG/
Toronto SharePoint Business Users Group
http://www.meetup.com/TorontoSPUG/
Saturday July 9, 2016
See you next year!