Varigence, Inc.

You’re about to embark on a journey that will change the way you not only interact with Excel, but also how you make decisions and analyze your business. This short tutorial will get you going and started with Vivid. See the Vivid documentation for more in-depth information on specific features, as Vivid adds over 60 new features to Excel. In this walk through you'll do the following:

1. Download and install Vivid
2. Get a license key
3. Run Excel/Vivid to create a pivot table against a cube
4. Use a few of the interesting pivot table features of Vivid

Downloading & Installing

The first thing you need to do is get Vivid downloaded and installed. To download Vivid go to http://www.varigence.com/download-vivid

. Simply execute Vivid.exe to start the installation process. You may have to install several prerequisites that include .NET Fx 3.5SP1, .NET Fx 4.0, ADOMD.NET, VSTO 4.0 Runtime. Just follow along with the various prompts and you should be fine. If you do have any problems, please contact support@varigence.com.

Running Vivid

As Vivid is an Excel add-in, to run Vivid you simply start Excel. The first time you start Excel you will be prompted with this dialog requesting a license key:

If you happen to have a license key already simply copy it into the text field (white space is ignored, so don’t worry about trailing spaces or carriage returns) and click “Commit”. If you don’t have a license key then you can request one by clicking the big green “Request License Key” button. This will open the following dialog requesting your email address, Name, and Company. After filling out this dialog click the “Submit” button and the license key will be shortly emailed to you (usually within a minute).

If you don’t see it, please be sure to check your spam inbox in your email client. If you still don’t see it, try clicking the “Request License Key” button again, but this time, click the “Behind a Firewall?” link on that dialog, and fill out the information on the webpage. If none of this works, send an email to support@varigence.com and we’ll be sure to get you a trial license key. After you get your license key in email, simply copy it to the dialog and click “Commit”. After this Excel will load and you will see “Vivid” in the ribbon.

Creating a Pivot Table for a Cube

The next step is that we will connect to an SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) datasource (a PowerPivot source will also work). In this tutorial we’re going to assume that you already have a connection saved to an existing SSAS datasource. The steps to create a new pivot table to a cube are EXACTLY the same steps you would use if you were using vanilla Excel without Vivid. Here’s one way to do so:

1. Click the “Data” tab in the ribbon.
2. Click “Existing Connections” in the ribbon.
3. Double-click one of the SSAS connections in your list.
4. In the “Import Data” dialog, click “OK” to accept the default setting.

After the cube loads it should have an empty pivot table in the sheet.

Playing With Pivot Table and Vivid

Go to the Vivid Pivot Table Editor on the right side of the screen and expand some of the measure groups and dimensions. Then hover over some of the measures and dimensions. You’ll immediately see some useful information in the form of hover popups.

Now we’ll just show a few features of Vivid. First lets add a measure to the pivot table.

1. Click the expand/collapse all button to expand all of the measure groups.
2. Now click a measure to add it to the pivot table.

Next let’s add a hierarchy to the pivot table.

1. Click the expand/collapse all button to expand all of the dimensions.
2. Now drag any hierarchy to the pivot table overlay and place it in rows. But you’re saying, “There is no pivot table overlay?!” One will appear as you begin the drag, so just start it on faith and it will work.

If you’re using Excel 2010 then let’s add a hierarchy to the slicers. If you’re using Excel 2007, skip this step.

1. Drag any hierarchy from the pivot table editor to the image in the pivot table overlay that looks like a slicer and drop it on the image.
2. If the hierarchy has multiple levels, then the slicers will be stacked on top of each other. Just move them to see the underlying slicer.

Now lets perform a pivot table transformation. We will perform a cross drill. To do this right click the name of hierarchy in the row of the pivot table and then click “Vivid Cross Drill”. From there you will see list of eligible hierarchies – click one of these hierarchies. The resulting pivot table has been cross drilled and thus the hierarchy that was original in the row now in the page filter, and the hierarchy you just clicked on is now in the row of the pivot table.

Call to Action

That was just a few of the features in Vivid:

1. Expand/Collapse measure groups/dimensions
2. Drag and drop slicer support
3. Pivot Table Editor hover captions
4. Cross drill transformation

There are more than fifty additional features at http://www.varigence.com/products/vivid/features.html. Take look those and start experimenting. You’ll quickly see that Vivid will be an indispensible part of Excel going forward.