In this lesson we will continue our exploration of reporting options for Analysis Services cubes, an increasingly popular topic within the spectrum of Microsoft’s rapidly ascending Analysis Services solution. In this tutorial, we will extend our exploration into the use of MS Office applications for cube reporting to an examination of some of the options offered by the Office PivotTable List (the FrontPage "equivalent" of the Excel PivotTable Report) for report building with Analysis Services cubes. As we did with the Excel PivotTable Report in the first of our Reporting Options articles, we will present an introduction to designing PivotTable Lists in Microsoft FrontPage, to retrieve and display information from our cubes, first discussing the steps needed to define our data source, and to establish a connection to the cube. Next, we will expose the layout of the PivotTable List and its navigation, and explore its use in browsing and reporting our cube data. We will discuss the nesting of dimensions in PivotTable Report axes to achieve multidimensional reporting within the classical two-dimensional presentation of print media and PC screens, as well as general formatting considerations at relevant points in the tutorial.

Our objectives in the article include:

• An introduction to the features that are available within Office PivotTable List, and the options and capabilities therein that provide for creating robust and flexible reports;
• A practical walkthrough of the setup of Microsoft FrontPage connectivity and other preparatory steps;
• Exploration of additional facets of the basic use and navigation of the various components that comprise PivotTable List functionality;
• A focus on designing a PivotTable List, "from the ground up," to provide flexibility in information delivery to meet business needs;
• A discussion of some of the options for the incorporation of controls over the capabilities afforded to information consumers.

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About the Series:

This article is a member of the series Introduction to MSSQL Server 2000 Analysis Services. The series is designed to provide hands-on application of the fundamentals of MS SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services, with each installment progressively adding features and techniques designed to meet specific real - world needs. For more information on the series, as well as the hardware / software requirements to prepare for the exercises we will undertake, please see my initial article, Creating Our First Cube.
Analysis Services, Microsoft Office, Microsoft FrontPage, Reporting Options, Office PivotTable List, Control, Capability, Data Connection, Local Cube, Client, Business Intelligence, Query, MDX, Member, Drill down, Format

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