OLAP cubes are very similar to Microsoft Excel pivot tables. For this exercise, assume that your organization's purchasing agents rate vendors similar to the situation described in Application Exercise.
a. Open the Excel file Ch1lEx01. The spreadsheet has the following column names: VendorName, EmployeeName, Date, Year, and Rating.
b. Under the Insert ribbon in Excel, click Pivot Table.
c. When asked to provide a data range, drag your mouse over the data you imported so as to select all of the data. Be sure to include the column headings. Excel will fill in the range values in the open dialog box. Place your pivot table in a separate spreadsheet.
d. Excel will create a field list on the right-hand side of your spreadsheet. Drag and drop the field named VendorName under the word "Rows" at the bottom of the field list. Drag and drop EmployeeName under the word "Columns:' Now drag and drop the field named Rating under the word "Values?' Voila! You have a pivot table.
e. To see how the table works, drag and drop more fields onto the various sections of your pivot table. For example, drop Year on top of Employee. Then move Year below Employee. Now move Year below Vendor. All of this action is just like an OLAP cube, and, in fact, OLAP cubes are readily displayed in Excel pivot tables. The major difference is that OLAP cubes are usually based on thousands or more rows of data.
Attachment:- ch11ex01.xlsx