First of all, you can download Power Query here and it is compatible with Excel 2010 and Excel 2013.
After installing it, you'll have a new add-in called Power query. You can get your data for the web (search through wikipedia for instance), files and datasources. For AX I'll choose From SQL Server database:
All you need to do is to enter the name of the server (on which SQL server is installed) and optional is the database name. If you do not enter the database name, you can select any database found on the entered server.
As you can see below, the tables are on the right. A cool thing is the preview when hovering the table, a not so cool thing is the lack of ability to search for a table name. You cannot search or type the first couple of letters to quickjump to the table you'd like. In this example, I'll link SalesLine and SalesTable and my objective is to get an overview of sales and cost price per week in 2014 on sales order which have been fully invoiced.
So tick the option 'Select multiple items' and select SalesLine and SalesTable. On the Load Settings infopane, select Load to data model. You'll need to do this to create relation(s) between tables.
To create a relation, click to Merge button in the ribbon bar. Select your tables and select a field in both tables to create a relation. If you'd like more than one relation, hold the Control button and click the next to fields to relate. Hit enter to open the Query editor.
Click the Choose columns button to include the field you'd like, since AX holds all information for all companies in one table, you'll probably want DataAreaId to be included in every query.
In this example, I've choosen 7 fields and included dataareaid. Here I'll put a filter on the field as can be seen in the screenshot below. Every action you take is recorded on the right, there you can remove an action, or alter it if needed. I like this part, it's very userfrienldy.
You can create custom columns using formula's. In this example, I'll want the weeknumber from the CreatedDateTime. So insert a column and add the formula: =Date.WeekOfYear([CreatedDateTime]).All the formula options can be found here. Besides that, I created a new column CostPriceCustom and mulitplied SalesQTY and CostPrice.
Last two thing is to filter CreatedDateTime to This Year and SalesStatus to 3 (invoiced). So all is set, hit Apply and Close and the data is loaded in Excel.
Now all that needs to be done is to create a simple PivotTable and from it a diagram it shows my costs and revenues per week in the current year:
You can save the worksheet. When reopening, you'll have the same data. In order to refresh it, go to the Data tab and refresh and if you use a pivot table, refresh that as well.
My verdict:
Pro:
- It's free!
- Quick to install and setup
- Easy to use
Con:
- The query screen is light weight, no dragging and dropping, linking is very basic and difficult to find your table.
- Refreshing is basic. I'd like a more powerful option here, like scheduled refreshing and being able to quickly overview the tables / queries which can be refreshed.
