Connecting Excel to the FirstCube cube

In my examples, I will use Excel 2013 Professional, as this contains some features that are very interesting to users who wish to use Excel as their query tool.

To use Excel as the query tool against the cube, follow the given steps:

1. Open up Excel and create a new empty workbook.

2. Go to the tab named Data and click on the From Other Sources button to create a connection to Analysis Services. Click on the From Analysis Services button.

   

3. In the Connect to Database Server dialog, type the name of the server and instance; if you have followed in this book when installing the server it should be localhost\multidimensional. Then click on Next.

4. Choose the FirstCube database and click on Finish.

5. Choose to create a PivotTable Report and click on OK. Now you have an empty OLAP PivotTable connected to the FirstCube database and the Adventure Works DW2012 cube.

6. In the PivotTable Field list, drag the Sales Amount measure and drop it in the Values field.

7. Drag the Product Hierarchy...