The sections Working with Slices and Excel Integration, were structured in such a way as to give you a hands-on introduction to working with PowerOLAP®. That approach was facilitated by working through an example file, Avon Trading Company.olp, located in the Examples subdirectory.

This section—and indeed the remainder of the manual—expand on this approach to cover more advanced PowerOLAP® features. Although you will not build a model from scratch in these pages [that exercise is performed in the PowerOLAP Quick Start Manual], you will build onto the Avon Trading Company model to illustrate PowerOLAP® functions. The instruction and exercises that follow will guide you to best meet your particular business analysis needs—either creating models or working with models already created.

We will begin with an in-depth explanation of modeling concepts, along with data modeling exercises in the first part, Working with Dimensions and Members. Here we will introduce such concepts of Hierarchies, Weighted Members, Aliases and Properties, and conclude with a Summary of the all-important Dimension Hierarchy Toolbar. The second part, Working with Cubes, will instruct you in the creation of Cubes, the optimized multidimensional array of consolidated data used for viewing, comparing and manipulating business information. All concepts in this section build off the conceptual and practical foundation laid in both the Quick Start Manual and in the first two sections of this User Manual.