vnz 0281 excel advanced report development (2005)

[...]... to become proficient in Excel report development, I hope you find information here that can help speed you along on the journey ® Excel Advanced Report Development PA R T I Report Initiation and Source Data CHAPTER 1 Taking a First Look at Excel s Reporting Tools This chapter provides you with an overview of Excel s reporting features It shows you the principal types of Excel reports and how you can... top considerations for using Excel reports over competing report development software programs: Taking a First Look at Excel s Reporting Tools ■ ■ Excel reports can retrieve data from an Enterprise software application’s OLTP database in real-time Many systems require reports to be run by first launching the application and then requesting it If the report is exported to Excel, a second step is likely... lines between various report groups It can take days or weeks of training to be able to understand and perform this same type of task with competing report development software programs and enterprise reporting tools ■ ■ Some Excel report types, such as PivotTable reports, are very dynamic and powerful One report can replace dozens of traditional columnar reports A PivotTable report can contain many... report, and then simply develop an SQL query that extracted the data Once a basic report shell was created with the fields from the SQL query, report users could shape and format the report as they saw fit Often, a single Excel report replaced numerous existing reports On many implementation projects, we not only reduced the time and expense involved in replacing the reports, we also provided the report. .. the graphical display and report development features in this latest Excel release Excel 2003 is preferable; however, Excel 2002 (also known as Excel XP) and Excel 2000 can be used for most of the material and exercises If you do decide to use an earlier version, keep in mind that the screen captures found in this book will frequently vary from what you see with Excel 2002 or Excel 2000 There are also... already have Excel installed and users are often familiar with the basics of how this program works ■ ■ Report development time is often much faster than with competing reporting software applications Enterprise reporting tools and report development software programs can be very intricate and complex Organizations regularly hire report programmers or consultants to help develop many of their reports In... programmers or consultants to help develop many of their reports In contrast, learning and using Excel report development tools is simple Reports can frequently be developed more quickly, and at a lesser cost, than competing report development software programs and enterprise reporting tools 5 6 Chapter 1 ■ ■ Excel reports are integrated with related Microsoft products, such as FrontPage, MapPoint, Access,... organizations seeking to reduce costs and maintain their report development skills Instead of paying six employees to develop and manage reports using the report development tools in a few enterprise software applications, it may take only two employees to develop and manage equivalent reports for the same enterprise systems using a single report development software program Initially, information technology...Contents Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvi Part I Report Initiation and Source Data Chapter 1 Taking a First Look at Excel s Reporting Tools Why Use Excel for Reports? PivotTable Reports PivotChart Reports Spreadsheet Reports Parameter Queries Web Queries Related Office Components Microsoft MapPoint Microsoft FrontPage Microsoft Access... about developing comparable reports for your enterprise systems I’ve organized this book to help readers of all skill levels If you’re new to Excel reports, you should start with Part I of the book Advanced users who are already familiar with Excel s reporting features and with external data sources can skip to Part II, where the core features, functions, and components of Excel reports are covered The . alt="" Timothy Zapawa Excel ® Advanced Report Development 01_588117 ffirs.qxd 6/21/05 6:35 PM Page iii 01_588117 ffirs.qxd 6/21/05 6:35 PM Page ii Excel ® Advanced Report Development 01_588117. ffirs.qxd 6/21/05 6:35 PM Page ii Timothy Zapawa Excel ® Advanced Report Development 01_588117 ffirs.qxd 6/21/05 6:35 PM Page iii Excel ® Advanced Report Development Published by Wiley Publishing,. xvi Part I Report Initiation and Source Data 1 Chapter 1 Taking a First Look at Excel s Reporting Tools 3 Why Use Excel for Reports? 3 PivotTable Reports 6 PivotChart Reports 9 Spreadsheet Reports