Excel and OLAP Viewer: Not enough room for the Cube!

This post was kindly contributed by Business Intelligence Notes for SAS® BI Users - go there to comment and to read the full post.

When you use the OLAP Viewer in Microsoft Excel you may have run into the window borders – literally.  Your cube and analysis needs more space!  

Scroll, Scroll, and Scroll to See the Cube Data 

When you open the OLAP cube in the MS Excel OLAP Viewer the default cube size dictates the area used. You may get 20 rows by 20 columns or you might get 2 rows by 2 columns. So when you want to do some analysis, you expand a dimension and scroll, scroll this way and then scroll, scroll that way to see the coveted data!  We need space to do proper analysis!! Oh have the data gods forsaken us?!?

excel cube default view Excel and OLAP Viewer: Not enough room for the Cube!

Answer to Your OLAP Prayers

Obviously I would not bring up this point if I did not have an answer. So here’s how you work yourself out of this tight spot. Trick is to turn on the MS Excel Developer Ribbon. It may already be turned on – for instance, in the figure below you can see the Developer menu between the View and Excellent Analytics menus in my MS Excel menu.   If you have the Developer menu – then skip to the next step.  Otherwise, do this: 

  1. Right-click on the ribbon and select Customize the Ribbon.
  2. In the Main Tabs ensure the check box for Developer is checked. Click Ok to return.
  3. Now you have the Developer menu and you can enter Design Mode. The keys to the castle.

excel cube default view add developer ribbon Excel and OLAP Viewer: Not enough room for the Cube!

 

Now the magic …

  1. Click the Design Mode icon so you can make edits to the cube size.
  2. Drag and drop the right, lower corner to the desired size.
  3. Click the Design Mode icon again to exit the mode.

excel cube enlarge Excel and OLAP Viewer: Not enough room for the Cube!

Do me a favor … 

Oh … wasn’t that awesome?  Wanna know something else awesome!?  Adding your email address to my RSS list.  I won’t sell your name to anyone, but I’ll send you each new blog post AND the occasional announcement about a new book.  For instance, Angela and I are putting the final touches on our “The 50 Keys to Learning SAS Stored Processes” book, which will be available in April.   You know you want to know about that.

This post was kindly contributed by Business Intelligence Notes for SAS® BI Users - go there to comment and to read the full post.