The Amsterdam Excel Summit 2018

Hi Excel lovers,

Wanted to draw your attention to our fifth

Amsterdam Excel Summit

June 7 and 8 , 2018

We’ve worked hard to get an exciting line-up of speakers presenting on a wide variety of Excel subjects during our two-day conference.

So if you’re an Excel power-user, this is one of those one-of-a-kind conferences you cannot afford to miss!

Registration is now open

Hope to see you in Amsterdam on June 7 and 8 2018!

Jan Karel Pieterse, Tony de Jonker

topexcelclass.com

Look Ma…No PowerPivot!

So back in 2015 when I was trying to write a book, I took time out to rant that despite every version of Excel since 2013 having the Data Model baked in as standard, it wasn’t a heck of a lot of use to you in the event that:

  1. You wanted to mash together say a UnitPrice from one Table with a SalesQuantity from another, in order to display the derived Total Revenue in a PivotTable; and
  2. You were a tightwad that didn’t happen to have one of the premium PowerPivot SKUs installed.

Because while you could create a relationship between two Tables without PowerPivot:

…the option to create a calculated field to multiply Qty against Price was greyed out.

Disheartened with the lack of functionality in the non-Premium-Excel space (and sternly talked-to by my wife about the need to shave and go out earn a crust) I flushed the nearly-finished manuscript down the toilet in disgust. But now that I’m flush again, I’ve dusted off that manuscript (it wasn’t really down the toilet) and am updating it, so that I can nearly-finish it all over again.

Anyways, I was subsequently looking at this DataModel thing again, and rewriting the bit that said how sucky it is that you need to pay a premium in order to do a pretty standard thing, when I came across this:

Wow…It IS possible. Tight-wad analysts of the world: You too can do PowerPivoty stuff, without paying a cent more. You heard it hear first. Or second, rather.
Thanks, Mike Girvin, from the bottom of my wallet. :-)

Look Ma…no PowerPivot:

I wonder what limitations this PowerPivot back door has, if any?

—UPDATE—
I found this from Chris Webb’s blog:
PowerPivot has been integrated into Excel, kind of. This means that the xVelocity (aka Vertipaq) engine is now native to Excel, and you can do all the basic PowerPivot stuff like loading vast amounts of data from multiple data sources and querying it via PivotTables directly in Excel, without installing any extra addins. PowerPivot does still exist as an optional extra however: you need it if you want to use the more advanced functionality that exists in PowerPivot today, such as filtering data before import, using diagram view, defining hierarchies and perspectives and so on.

And further down the page there’s some great commentary between Chris and Colin Banflied, including this from Colin:

  • xVelocity is divorced from PowerPivot, and built into Excel
  • PowerPivot is now simply a UI to administer the data model.

I’d always thought that while any edition of Office 2013/2016 can interact with a PowerPivot Excel Workbook (open it, click on slicers, change the pivot table etc.), if you wanted to “author” the Model you would need the correct version of Office, which includes the Power Pivot authoring functionality i.e. the PowerPivot window, which lets you define relationships/measures etc. But to some degree it appears not. Which has got me wondering…to what extent is PowerPivot just a UI for the DataModel baked in to every model of Excel? Sure, it can help you filter data before import, but so can PowerQuery, which is free in every version of Excel 2013 or later. Meaning there’s probably nothing stopping a savvy Excel VBA developer from simply rolling their own UI to help users of any post 2010 version of Excel do 99% of what they’d likely otherwise need PowerPivot for.

The Amsterdam Excel Summit 2016 open for registration

SpandoekLicht

Hi Everyone!

We’ve opened registration for our third annual

Amsterdam Excel Summit.

May 26, 2016

Join us in  Amsterdam to learn how to Excel from our Experts (all MVPs):
Jon Peltier, Bob Umlas,  Roger Govier, Henk Vlootman, Oz du Soleil, Tony de Jonker,  Jan Karel Pieterse.

Tentative program

Attend this comprehensive training event and you will:

  • Improve your Power Query skills
  • Learn how to Customize the ribbon for your workbooks and add-ins.
  • Get insight how to Build Excel models based on ranges and positions.
  • Understand how to create involved Array Formulas
  • Get advice on Best practices in Power pivot.
  • See how to use VBA to customize charts
  • Receive Tips & Tricks, documentation and lots of valuable files

The Excel Charting And Dashboard Masterclass

May 27th 2016

The Amsterdam Excel summit also features a post-conference training. Attend this one-day masterclass and:

Excel MVP and charting Guru Jon Peltier teaches you how to visualize your numerical information in the most effective way.
Excel MVP and financial expert at najlepsze strony bukmacherskie Tony de Jonker and communication &  visualization expert David Hoppe unveil the secrets of creating powerful and flexible dashboards.

So head over to our website to register or to signup to our mailing list so we can keep you posted!

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse

topexcelcass.com

jkp-ads.com

PowerPivot Stats

Here’s what a recent PowerPivot process looked like

  • 14,512,074 Rows
  • 7 Columns
  • 14:09 to load data from SQL Server at 30M
  • 5:36 to save file
  • 129MB file size
  • 0:14 recalc time
  • 1,559,700KB used by the EXCEL.EXE process

On this client machine:

  • Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit
  • Excel 2010 64bit
  • 36GB RAM
  • 2.4Ghz Xeon processor

Leave your story in the comments.

The Amsterdam Excel Summit Last-minute discount

Hi everyone,

Our event is coming real soon now and we’re very much looking forward to it. We have outstanding speakers and excellent content, so everything is lined up to make this a superb Excel event.

To entice the undecisive Excel lovers to make up their minds and subscribe after all, we decided to make it even more attractive to attend.

As of March 27st, 2015 we offer a € 200 last-minute discount per attendee for both days and € 100 for one day!

Register now at http://topexcelclass.com/index.php/amsterdam-excel-summit/registration/ and meet us on April 13th and 14th in Amsterdam.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse

www.jkp-ads.com

The Amsterdam Excel Summit 2015

Hi Excel lovers!

Last year we had a terrific Excel event in Amsterdam in May. This year we’re in for a repeat!

I have just opened registration for what is going to be the place to be for anyone Excel-minded. We have two days full of excellent subjects. An impression:

  • Three in-depth Power Query sessions
  • Two sessions on improving your spreadsheet quality
  • Two sessions on charting, making your life easier and enabling you to build charts you didn’t even know you could
  • Two sessions on pivot tables and formulas
  • A session on how to build UDFs

So why don’t you book your flights and hotels and join us on April 13th and 14th for an unsurpassed Excel experience!

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse