Using SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel to Analyze SAP Data

Writers: Scott Cameron (Hitachi Consulting), Chunhui Zhu, Denny Lee

SAP is one of the most widely deployed and capable ERP systems. Because SAP is the central nervous system for many organizations, accessing the data that is captured and lives in SAP is essential to effectively managing the business. As with many ERP systems, it can sometimes be challenging to get data out of SAP applications because those are optimized for transacting and capturing data. SAP has a number of BI tools, but very few of the tools allow end users to work directly with the data in a familiar environment like Microsoft Excel and easily integrate other non-SAP data sources.