General Tab

Selecting the Options command from the Home tab, enables you to set several general database options.

You can access this tab by going to the Home tab of the PowerOLAP ribbon, then clicking on the Options command under the Edit control group. The Options dialog box is opened, with the General tab on current settings.

Calculation Mode

As discussed previously, the radio buttons will allow you to show Slice changes and data entry calculations upon entry (Automatic) or upon pressing F9 (Manual)—similar to your experience with Excel.

Create Excel Worksheet Using OLAP

ReadWrite, Table, Pivot or WriteTable: These options concern the data connection function used to create Excel spreadsheets from PowerOLAP slices. You will create an Excel worksheet momentarily—these functions are discussed in detail in the PowerOLAP® User Manual.

Database Files

Provided below are the different options under the Database Files section followed by a brief description of each option.

• When Automatically save Database every… is selected, you can save an active database periodically (every X minutes) by adjusting the spinner scrollbars or entering a number directly in the text box.

• When Automatically open Previous database on application launch is selected, the last-opened database will open when PowerOLAP is opened.

• When Allow Reserved Characters is checked, PowerOLAP can accept any of the following characters in Meta Data:

Note:
If this function is not checked, PowerOLAP^® will NOT accept these characters in the Meta Data. This becomes important when working with OLAP Exchange^®, as you will not be able to build a Cube if the source data contains any of these characters.

• The Enable Windows Active Directory Auth using domain option will be enabled if your client license has the Active Directory Authentication feature enabled.

- Check this option to enable the Windows Active Directory Authentication feature of PowerOLAP. Then indicate on the text field the appropriate 'network domain name' where the user logs in.

Excel Connection

The Use Default Directory option saves you from having to browse for the database when opening each time by defaulting to the folder you designate.
Note: You must have the database closed when setting this option.

To Use Default Directory—i.e., set up the PowerOLAP database to default to a certain directory upon opening or saving a file, simply check the corresponding tick box then browse for a particular directory.

Use Excel (Version)

During installation, PowerOLAP will prompt you for a version of Excel to use. You can select a different version of Excel to use at any time in the Options dialog: Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel XP, Excel 2003, or Latest Installed version.

Language

Select your language preference here. PowerOLAP® is available in the following languages: Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish and Traditional Chinese. After selecting a language, you will be informed that in order for the selection to take effect, you must close and then re-open PowerOLAP®.

Caching

The sliding bar determines the size of the cache threshold.

PowerOLAP® stores aggregation and formula calculations in cache based on the amount of cache available. If the cache threshold is set to high, PowerOLAP® will continue to store calculations in cache, hence decreasing the time to retrieve values. If you have a large amount of RAM on the Server machine, you can move the bar to the right.

If the cache threshold is set to low, PowerOLAP® will store only a minimal amount of information in cache, and recalculations will be retrieved from the data store. Move the bar to the left, therefore, to limit the amount of cache devoted to calculations—if you have less RAM, this may be the better choice. You will continue to see calculations quickly, though not as fast as if they were retrieved from cache.