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Find and Evaluate a Source for Data Feeds

Data feeds are used to move XML data from online data sources into PowerPivot-enabled workbooks that you create in the PowerPivot for Excel. To use a data feed, you must first identify one or more Web or data services that return data in the Atom 1.0 format.

This topic contains the following sections:

Review Possible Sources of the Atom Data Format

Get Data Feeds from Microsoft Tools and Applications

Create Custom Providers to Generate Data Feeds from In-house Data Sources

Review Possible Sources of the Atom Data Format

Sources of Atom 1.0 data include:

  • Software that has built-in export features that produce Atom data feeds. Both SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 include export features that produce Atom 1.0 data.

  • Internal or custom data services created within your organization by data specialists, for the purpose of making corporate or business data available as Atom data feeds.

  • External or public sources of syndicated data that support Atom feeds. Data syndicators are increasingly offering Atom feeds as an alternative to RSS feeds. Atom feed links that appear on Web sites of data syndicators can be included in SSAS data service documents as a data service URL that provides Atom data.

Get Data Feeds from Microsoft Tools and Applications

Possible sources of Atom 1.0 data include built-in capability from SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and SharePoint lists that enable you to export the data in these sources in the Atom 1.0 format. If these sources are available to you, you have automatic access to Atom 1.0 data via built-in export features.

Source

Atom data

Link

Reporting Services

The SQL Server 2008 R2 version of Reporting Services includes a new data rendering extension that exports report data in the Atom 1.0 format.

Import Data from a Reporting Services Report

SharePoint lists

In SharePoint 2010, libraries and lists include a new Export as data feed command on the ribbon. Items in the list, as well as internal XML that describes the list, can all be exported as a data feed.

Exporting a SharePoint list requires that you install ADO.NET Data Services on your system. For more information, see Install ADO.NET Data Services to support data feed exports of SharePoint lists.

Import Data from a Data Feed

Create Custom Providers to Generate Data Feeds from In-house Data Sources

Atom data services might be found within your organization if you have developers that know how to create them. Data specialists or programmers can easily create simple data services to help make internal data more accessible to business users. Enhancements to ADO.NET Data Services and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) enable and simplify data service development, making it relatively easy to return data from existing corporate databases as Atom data.

Common technologies for building data services include the following:

  • REST-style Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services.

  • ADO.NET Data Services Framework. For more information, see Using ADO.NET Data Services.

Custom Data Service Requirements

A data service provides XML tabular data upon request. For Analysis Services to be able to use this data, the data service must meet certain requirements that are described in the following table.

Requirement

Description

HTTP endpoint

The data service must be accessible over a Web connection. The data service will be referenced within the data feed by its URL path.

Registration

Data feeds are accessed through data service documents that you create on a SharePoint site.

The data service document registers a data feed, making the feed available to other users.

Importing the data service document triggers requests that get actual data from the data services listed in the document.

Authentication and access control

The data service must either allow anonymous access or support Windows integrated security using the credentials of the current user.

Data output in the Atom 1.0 format

The data service must provide data output that conforms to the Atom 1.0 Syndication format. This is the format that is supported by the data feed reader that is built into PowerPivot for Excel.

The built-in data feed reader does not support the RSS format.

For more information about data output requirements, see Data Feed XML Syntax.

Paging

Atom data services can support paging to break up data into manageable chunks.

Paging is ignored in Analysis Services.

All data will be loaded into the IMBI model for each consecutive page until no more data is found (or a memory threshold or other resource constraint occurs).

Logged operations (optional)

Analysis Services cannot log events or operations performed by the data service. Logging is function of the data service that you use. If the data service does not log events or errors, you will not have a record of whether the data was retrieved successfully. If you are creating a data service provider for corporate data, consider adding logging capability to your service so that you can track the status of import and refresh operations.