Hidden away deep within the mission statement of most business intelligence vendors is the goal of being the de facto standard for data analysis, with one of their tools installed on every desktop. With Data Analyzer 3.5, the latest addition to the Office XP suite, Microsoft may have just beaten them to the punch.

Data Analyzer 3.5 is based on technology Microsoft acquired when it purchased Israeli OLAP developer Maximal Innovative Intelligence, and this is the first release branded with the Microsoft logo. Data Analyzer is aimed squarely at business users and harnesses the power of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services to deliver a rich, graphic analysis of OLAP data. The first thing that you notice when you open the tool is that you don't have to be a database or OLAP expert to start working with it — most of the dialogs are wizard driven and clearly explain each option.

The first step in creating a new Data Analyzer document is creating a connection to your data source. Using Data Analyzer, you can connect to a SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Server using a local cube (.cub) or a cube based on a Web server. Once you have established a connection to a data source, you will need to select the dimensions that you want to appear in your view and choose how these dimensions will be displayed.

Data Analyzer can display data in grid or graph form and can display multiple panes of information on the screen at the same time. (See Figure 1.) The graphical interface provides support for drilling down and up through the data, as well as drill-through capability (if you designed your cube with this functionality). Especially handy when working with large data sets, there is a filtering option that lets you select just the dimensions and members you want to see.

After you create your own view, you can save it using Data Analyzer's own file format (.max) or distribute your view in a number of other common Office formats. For further analysis, a cube view can be exported to an Excel Pivot Table report (or just to an Excel workbook) and, for presentations, to PowerPoint. There is also an HTML reporting option that will let you save your Data Analyzer view as an HTML document for viewing in your own Web browser, posting to an intranet site, and so on.

Where the tool comes in to its own is with the use of the Business Center. When invoked, the Business Center displays a list of plain English questions (for example, "How does Gross Profit in the referenced period compare to the same period last year?") that when selected will show you the answer using the view you have created. Behind the scenes, you can build a number of complex formulas into your view, providing the calculations and answers to the question.

Data Analyzer also has support for "Cube Actions," actions predefined when a cube is built. With this release, the only supported action is attaching and launching a URL from a particular dimension, but it still is a handy feature when you need to jump to a Web page to explain a particular metric or dimension.

WHEN THE WISH LIST IS NOT ENOUGH

With a feature set that reads like a wish list for most business users, at first glance this analysis tool would appear to be perfect. Unfortunately, it falls flat in a number of areas in the execution of those features.