Ready-Made Solution

In this chapter, we examined ways we can create our own custom interfaces to our business intelligence sources. In Chapter 17, we look at a familiar, decidedly noncustom environment that can be used for accessing OLAP data. This ready-made environment is none other than Microsoft Excel. Although the Excel environment may not have all the flash of a custom-made solution and all the enterprise-wide capabilities of Reporting Services, it still provides a capable environment for interactive and self-guided analysis of OLAP data.