Through Microsoft Excel’s 2010 PowerPivot (Power Pivot) service application you give meaning to your data recorded in your Microsoft Excel worksheets. With Excel’s PowerPivot you can stay connected as a group and get help in running your business smoothly and keep an eye on the progress throughout, no matter how much data you have.  Creating a PowerPivot service application for your Excel data is simple and easy. Here are some simple instructions along with some every important tips that you could use to create and configure the service application. However, keep in mind that creating multiple service application would require you to fulfill what the system needs. So, in case you do not need the multiple applications, it is okay to avoid creating them as you would be required to put in effort otherwise. And don’t forget, Excel 2013 (Excel 15) is on its way. .

  • Go to application management menu.
  • Find the “manage service applications” in the central administration and click there.
  • Here, you will find the Service Applications ribbon. Click New in this ribbon.
  • If the PowerPivot software is correctly installed, you will now see a SQL Server PowerPivot Service. You have to click here to find the “create new PowerPivot service application”.
  • It is here that you will be required to enter the name of the application. By default the name is PowerPivotServiceApplication<number>. The number would obviously be provided to you. This may not apply if you go for multiple service applications: in that case you would need to give a descriptive name so that the administrators can understand the applications better.
  • It is recommendable to go to the application pool and create your own application pool with a managed account. The domain user account has to be specified so make sure you do not skip this part because it would enable to update passwords and other such information much more conveniently as you would now be able to use SharePoint’s additional features for managing accounts.
  • Note that in Database Server the databases are configured by the SQL Server Database Engine b default. You can stick to it or change it replacing it by another SQL server that you find more suitable to your interests and use.
  • It is desirable to choose a database name that is unique rather than having the default set name continued. This would make your work more recognizable and for yourself a lot easier to manage.
  • Then comes the database authentication. By default, it is windows authentication that is set. You can change it to another SQL authentication as you please. Again for this purpose, having an access to SharePoint’s features is very helpful.
  • Finally stay connected by choosing the checkbox for service connection. It is particularly important to select the checkbox if it is the first time that you are creating the application.
  • Finally, click “OK” and you will see the newly created application among the already existing ones, ready to be used.

You would now need to understand how to configure the Microsoft Excel PowerPivot service application and also need to learn how to connect it to a web application for better connectivity. For configuring the service application, you again have to proceed through the Central Administrator and follow the series of simple steps. The process is to an extent self explanatory and user friendly.  The major things you need to look at include the timeout and the pool size. Make sure you are well aware of the database load timeout and the configuration pool timeout. The pool size in question would be the maximum user pool size and the pool size for the maximum administrative connection.

Likewise, for connecting the Excell PowerPivot service applications to a network you follow the same starting point: the Central Administration. Again you are lead to the default settings which you have a liberty to change in accordance with your needs and priorities. The main step is dealing with the editing of group associations as of course this is what connectivity is mostly about.

Fortunately, through the Central administrator you can edit the settings of the PowerPivot service applications anytime you want. This gives you enough chance to suit your needs and improve the system according to your business requirements. This is how easy to use the application is, if you run into trouble you can always hire an Excel consultant to set this up for you and your business. Our corporate office is based out of the Irvine area in Orange County California, covering Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Brea, Long Beach, and Riverside. We have developer offices across the country to assist you, from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, Brea, Dallas, Oregon, Canada, New York, Florida, Arizona, and off to Manchester, London, and Sydney with a few others out there. So get started today!