This is a Pretty Dramatic Dip and Recovery. What Else Could Explain It? I’m all ears.
No DAX Required
Nothing fancy here, just a chart of page views of a very specific page on this site – the What is PowerPivot? page. I use that page as an indicator of new interest – most people viewing it are “early” in their Power Pivot journeys.
That dip starting in February is incredible. What else could explain it other than the decision to remove Power Pivot from most “flavors” of 2013? Eight months later, after Power Pivot re-appeared in Excel 2013 Standalone, we’re back to the same “slope” of the line that we had in February. Maybe a little better.
Of course, Power Pivot usage was STILL growing, a LOT, during the dip. And in fact growing by a lot more than the same months in 2012. It’s just that the RATE of growth fell during those months. The faucet of new users was still flowing, and flowing fast. It was just “turned down” from full speed for a few months.
But imagine where we’d be WITHOUT this 6-8 month dip in growth rate. The curve leading up to February looks awfully exponential doesn’t it? Let’s take a look…
New Monthly Interest Projects to Have Been 35% Higher Right Now Without the SKU Snafu
Oh, and the “recovery” is just due to the Standalone decision. Imagine if it had just been left in ALL versions from the beginning, not just Standalone.
So, don’t let anyone tell you the SKU thing had trivial impact.
Also, it proves surprisingly difficult to get an Excel trendline to only “pay attention” to part of the original data. To create the chart displayed above, that projects forward from Feb while still displaying March-Oct, I had to make two charts, get their vertical axes synchronized, and then “merge” the two chart images using layers and transparency in Paint.NET.
Chart pros – there’s a better way, right? No, I didn’t use Google. I suck.
