Introducing the Data Mining Add-In for Excel

Originally introduced as a means of creating data mining solutions using Microsoft Excel, Table Analysis Tools for Excel 2007 (and later versions too) is available for download from the Microsoft web site. There are two primary limitations on using the tool to create predictive models. First, because the add-in was developed for Office 2007, it is available only in a 32-bit version. The second limitation is the requirement to access a SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) server. This is because Table Analysis Tools is intended to be an interface to SSAS for the creation of data mining models that are already integral to Microsoft's OLAP server. Look closely and you can see the similarity between PowerPivot for Excel as an interface for the creation of SSAS databases and Table Analysis Tools as a means for creating data mining models within SSAS. These limitations can combine to be quite tricky given the 64-bit–only nature of SQL Server 2008 R2 and the fact that Table Analysis Tools is available only for 32-bit Microsoft Office. The Table Analysis Tools example in this chapter was constructed using 32-bit Microsoft Office 2010 and a SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services instance running on a separate physical machine.