Hi there,

I'm in the process of looking for a suitable Excel Add in for reporting on
our Analysis Services Cubes. It would appear that there are 5 main products
that have been designed to cater for Analysis Services (apart from
Micorsoft's excel add in) - IntelligentApps, MIS Plain, Visual OLAP and
XLCubed.

I've trialled IntelligenApps and quite like its functionality/user
friendliness. Visual OLAP is also looking good, though I haven't trialled it
as yet. Am just wondering if anyone has recommendations of one of these
products over the rest???

Thanks..
Rekha

You should download the free trial of xlcubed. One of the best!

But don't forget that you have also Panorama Novaview for Excel. One
of the fastest MSAS2000 clients available today.

You can download a free trial from our website: www.gmsbv.nl

Regards, Marco

"Rekha" <Rekha (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Rekhaf

You should also have a look at 'o2olap for Excel' as it is innovative and
leading in new functionality for OLAP tools. 'o2olap for Excel' is not just
a browser but a development environment. One of the vendors detailed in your
list has changed to an o2olap approach over the last year or two, whilst
another continuously tries to find out about o2olap's new functionality and
methods. Another good vendor on the market is ProClarity.

Regards
Howard.Taylor@ domain below
www.o2olap.com

"Rekha" <Rekha (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Here is the more complete list of Excel Add-Ins for Analysis Services:

a.. Microsoft Office Excel Add-in for SQL Server Analysis Services

http://www.microsoft.com/office/solu...n/default.mspx
b.. XLCubed http://www.xlcubed.com
c.. IntelligentApps http://www.intelligentapps.com
d.. MIS Plain http://www.misag.com
e.. BIXL http://www.bixl.com
f.. QBEX http://www.advanceinfo.com/qbex
g.. Visual OLAP http://www.visualolap.com
h.. O2OLAP http://www.o2olap.com
i.. OLAP NaviGo http://www.olapnavigo.com
j.. Panorama NovaView Excel http://www.panoramasoftware.com
Some reviews:
a.. Nigel Pendse's review in OLAP Report
http://www.olapreport.com/products/O...readsheets.htm
b.. Microsoft Analysis Services + Full Function Excel Add-Ins. The Perfect
Combination - whitepaper by Nigel Pendse
http://www.misag.com.au/include/news...20Services.pdf
c.. John Keeley's reviews
a.. http://www.johnkeeley.com/excel_add-...ctionality.htm
b.. http://www.johnkeeley.com/excel_add-ins_speed_test.htm

--
==================================================
Mosha Pasumansky - http://www.mosha.com/msolap
Analysis Services blog at http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/mosha
Development Lead in the Analysis Server team
All you need is love (John Lennon)
Disclaimer : This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.
==================================================

"Rekha" <Rekha (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

I know that those products that you mention at the top of the thread
are being used by numerous top fortune 500 companies doing serious
reporting with great success, many of which are mentioned on their
websites.

Mosha, who works for Microsoft in the AS team, posted on this forum
recently a pretty full list of excel add-ins.

The truth is it doesn't take long to evaluate them quickly and to see
their relative strengths and weaknesses. My advice is to try to do
something large and complicated rather than something simple and to
ensure you have a full understanding of the product's underlying
architecture. Questions to ask .. How is the MDX being generated, how
many MDX calls are being created under what circumstances, what XMLA
options are there. How are complex disjoint reports supported. What
degree of interaction is there within Excel ie. support for formulae,
member selection from standard excel cells. What happens when cube
structures change .. ie new members or new dimensions. And the list
goes on ..

Most vendors are happy to discuss this openly and provide free trial
downloads without any restrictions.

As for who is leading and who is innovative, I had thought that the
vendors advertising opinion of their products was NOT appropriate for
this forum. We all have our websites for this.

I think it is disappointing that there may not be a detail reply to
this thread from end users. In my view people (other than a few
exceptions) are unwilling to express their views in a public forum, as
they don't want to get jumped upon by others with loud voices or those
with a degree of paranoia.


Mark Scanlon
XLCubed

Thanks Mosha and everyone else.

The links you sent are very helpful.

Cheers,
Rekha


"Mosha Pasumansky [MS]" wrote:

Mark

Thank you for your reply and unfortunately you have forced me to reply to
your contribution.

All the questions you mention companies should ask about products are
totally valid and are appropriate. As you mentioned, there are so many more.

This is NOT appropriate!

1. o2olap, nor any other vendor in the OLAP market, would be to happy to
find a competitor vendor in their seminar held for potential clients and
potential resellers. Unfortunately, this was the case with yourselves,
XLCubed, who attended our seminar under the guise of another company. This
we only found out after the seminar and we were quite frankly disgusted at
the conduct. A former director of one of the largest OLAP companies who was
at the seminar was also appalled, and said something to the effect that
"that is just not on". You may argue that you have had other vendors at your
events and so have we, but normally they are invited and are not veiled for
competitive reasons. Most do not use the approach you and your colleague
adopted.

What we also did not appreciate at the time, was the apparent redirection of
one of the potential clients at this seminar to a reseller of XLCubed. This
I am not 100% sure of as I have a bit more respect for the relevant client
and have not wished to put them in this situation where I ask them about
this issue. I do know however that the respective reseller involved did come
in for a download at the time. Out of interest, the client did buy o2olap.

2. o2olap do provide downloads to competitor OLAP companies as and when
agreed. Again unfortunately we came across this situation which appears to
have been from yourselves, XLCubed. The person, based in the US, went to
great lengths to get a copy of o2olap and applied for a download under two
different company names. This at the time was not linked to the XLCubed, but
raised suspicion. And by the way, this was just after the seminar.
Unfortunately, for XLCubed, at some stage he attached his business cards
which tied XLCubed, the consultancy company that attended our seminar and in
which I believe you are a shareholder, and his respective companies the
individual is/was involved with.

It was later confirmed to me by an OLAP commentator on this forum that this
individual was involved with XLCubed and had spoken to the individual on
numerous occasions when working with XLCubed in his previous position at a
company. I believe the OLAP commentator was of the understanding that the
individual was involved in programming and support for XLCubed.

For the record, o2olap have NOT downloaded or attempted to download any
competitor Analysis Services product, other than the Microsoft product, as
firstly, and quite frankly, we do not feel we need to. Secondly, the
potential implications against both the company and individuals is just not
worth taking the risk for. We also do not want to put our clients in the
situation where they may have to withdraw the software and lose their
investment.

We have kept these records.

How many other vendors have had similar incidents?



The next comments are general and NOT, and I repeat NOT associated in any
way to you, but fall under the NOT appropriate banner in the OLAP arena.

3. Hacking - Last year we had over 500 attempts to hack our severs in the
first six months, none of which we believe were successful. We reported this
to the authorities with all the logs intact.

Last year, we were in fact hacked and one of our development machines was
humming away as the hacker attempted to copy the disk and software. At first
I thought it may have been a virus scan and checked for this. It was not and
I realised what was happening and broke the network connection straight
away. The humming stopped immediately. Then I checked the logs for the IP
address. The resulting IP address was noted with interest!

We immediately took action to resolve this security breach to ensure that
this does not happen again. Unfortunately we are all exposed to security
patches.

4. Apparent Independent Consultants

Last year a consultant approached us through the internet and said that he
was a freelance OLAP consultant. We carried on the dialog for a period of
time before agreeing to give him a copy of o2olap. Soon after, we found out
that in fact he was an employee of one of the largest OLAP companies in the
world. The relevant OLAP company's legal department was contacted
immediately and the issue was resolved between us. The company's name has
not been mentioned as the company is well respected and I believe generally
works within an acceptable code of conduct that is appropriate in the OLAP
arena.

As a direct result of this, and the fact that the user used a non-company
domain name we have put controls in place to reduce this risk. We are also
selective with whom we work.

5. Cheap Pops by Aliases

There has been a recent cheap pop at me on a forum whereby the relevant
person tried to disguise their contribution by using an alias. They know who
they are as I called them. We also have not answered the relevant persons
contribution as we have had some more important matters to address.

6. Aggressive Threading OLAP Vendor Meeting, User Group Meetings and
Comments

One OLAP meeting with an OLAP company stands out as the representatives
acted in a very threatening and aggressive manner, possibly as a result I
did not want to work with the representatives and what they stood for.
Following this occasion, one of the representatives, after a few drinks,
even remonstrated physically. I did call him the next day to address the
issue. On another occasion a member of an OLAP company even said "your life
will not be worth living if ...". Personally, I am not intimidated and
rather report these issues now.

After meeting an OLAP company member in New York he totally fabricated some
issues for legal reasons. Later the individual was removed from office due
to questionable behaviour.

7. Code and theft

We sold an OLAP product to an OLAP company, but the code was stolen,
adjusted and used on a client site by the consultant that developed this for
us. This has placed the client company at risk.

8. F, T&C - I have not spelt this out as this is a more serious issue and
will be addressed at some stage.

..... and I could go on, but enough.




Lastly, I will address another issue you raise in your contribution at a
later stage as the consequences for all in the industry are immense. I am
also addressing one issue more directly and through the right channels.

Howard

SUPPORT FOR ETHICAL INDEPENDENT REVIEW FOR ALL COMPANIES WORLDWIDE










"MPS" <mark.scanlon (AT) xlcubed (DOT) com> wrote

Hi Rekha,

Wow - some of the replies to your question do drag on a bit don't they?!

In short, there are lots out there as per Moshas answer, but I reckon you've
got the key ones below. I would suggest trying them all out (download or
web-ex) and seeing which you like best. Don't be pressured by the hard sell
types or the people who promise you the world in terms of individual
development and support - unless you're buying 100+ licences you're better
asking about their long term development plans. I'd also look for published
real world examples of their use. The bigger players all have these and can
provide reference sites upon request - ask another end user in effect rather
than a developer or vendor.

I know which product I'd reccomend first off based upon its client base,
maturity, ancillary web tool, connections to other olap sources amongst other
points. BUT and its a bit BUT it all depends what you want from the product.

Hope that helps

Dave

"Rekha" wrote: