Data Explorer is a new feature in the upcoming SQL Server 2014, which is a feature that makes self-service business intelligence in an enterprise more flexible and thus lowers the threshold for business intelligence.
Data Explorer Preview for Excel provides a new way to discover data for self-service business intelligence, consolidate it, and refine it. If you are unfamiliar with it, the following five points will give you an idea of how it can improve the way you work with data in Excel.
With the help of data Explorer, you can:
1. Data discovery
Data Explorer brings up the concept of searching in Excel (not a simple document). In other words, you can retrieve public data in Excel. In Excel you can get rich and interactive data, and when you find the data you want, simply click on the mouse to import the data into your Excel workbook.
The screenshot below is retrieving data on "Europe's largest city" in Excel.
2. A wide range of data source connections
Data Explorer supports connections from a wide variety of sources, including simple text data and more complex Hadoop data.
Among them, the text-type data includes:
text based sources (plain text, CSV)
XML
Excel File
Access database
folders (treat a file under a folder as a table)
• Support for Web page data sources includes:
• The table in the Web page
Web Apis/json
OData
Relational engines, including:
SQL Server, Windows Azure SQL Database, SQL Server PDW
Oracle
Teradata
DB2
MySQL
PostgreSQL
Other data sources, including:
Windows Azure Marketplace
SharePoint Lists
Active Directory
Hadoop
Windows Azure hdinsight
Facebook
More data sources will be added to the official team and, of course, if you want to get support for a data source, you can also contact the official team directly.
3. Merging data from multiple data sources
The data Explorer makes it easier to integrate different data sources, and the screenshot below illustrates the integration of the product table in the OData feed and the Vendor data table from the text file.
4. More efficient collation and conversion of data
In Data Explorer, it's easy to sort out and derive new data from existing data. All this can be done with simple sorting and sequencing operations, and more complex operations, such as reverse perspective, can be achieved with a few simple clicks.
You can do most of the conversion through the UI, and you can use the Data Explorer language to make the most of the power and expressiveness of data Explorer.
The screenshot below is a data conversion from the menu in the UI action sheet. The following bulletin board facilitates your reference to the formula and writes the custom expression.
5. Refresh data at any time
The Data Explorer query is a very simple expression, with a few simple steps you can use to import data from a data source and organize the information in an interface. That is to say, these queries can be refreshed in real time as needed. There is a link on the query panel that allows you to update the data in your workbook to the latest.
Let's all focus on data explorer, and I also think you'll like it. If you have any questions or feedback, you can browse the Data Explorer forum in addition to the following message:
Http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/window