Inserting a data source

In Analysis for Excel, data is displayed and analyzed in crosstab. To create a crosstab, first choose Insert Data Source from the Analysis ribbon. You then have three options:

• Select Data Source for Analysis . . .
• Select Data Source for Defining Formulas . . .
• Insert Anlaysis View . . .

When choosing Select Data Source for Analysis . . ., you select the appropriate connection to your source system and then browse in that system for the specific data source you want to analyze.

The result is a crosstab, usually with measures in the Columns and dimensions in the Rows.

When inserting a data source for defining formulas, you can use all data sources available to Analysis. But rather than the data appearing in a crosstab format, no crosstab is displayed. Instead, you can use formulas to design workbooks that do not adhere to the classic result set/crosstab based layout.

We will explore Analysis-specific formulas later in the course.

An Analysis view is the saved analysis state of what you see in a single crosstab, including any filtered data. You can save this state and use it as a data source for Analysis for Office as well as other SAP Analytics tools such as SAP Web Intelligence and SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise.