Monday, April 25, 2011

Meetings, meetings, meetings... Ever wanted to see some hard number analytics about your meetings? Check out the "Calendar Analytics Tools"

Microsoft Downloads - Calendar Analytics Tools

"Calendar Analytics allows users to connect to their Microsoft® Exchange Calendar and get dashboard views on meeting statistics inside Microsoft® Office Excel 2010.

File Name: CalendarAnalytics.zip

Size: 2.8MB

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 4/22/2011

Overview

Calendar Analytics allows them to connect to their Microsoft® Exchange Calendar and get dashboard views on meeting statistics inside Microsoft® Office Excel 2010.With this FREE add-in, you can:

  • Automatically retrieve time spent in calendar.
  • Drive ad-hoc analysis of your meeting times by day, by hour, by categories and business priorities.
  • View information about past meetings and future scheduled events.
  • Customize your views (using slicers, DAX formulas or reference tables).
  • Access this analysis for yourself and anyone who shares their calendar full details with you.

You can find additional information (videos, description and related links)on www.bizintelligence.tv.

Important:

  1. Please note, that, after Installation, Calendar Analytics will manifest itself as a Microsoft® Excel 2010 file called “Calendar Analytics.xlsx” on your desktop.
  2. Please note that Calendar Analytics works only with the latest versions of Microsoft® Excel 2010 and of Microsoft® PowerPivot for Excel 2010. To download Microsoft® PowerPivot for Excel 2010, please go http://powerpivot.com/
  3. Please note that Calendar Analytics takes advantage of Exchange Web Services (EWS). Exchange Web Services works with Exchange Server, Exchange Online as well as hybrid environments.

...

Instructions

Microsoft® Outlook instructions

  1. Assign the appropriate category to each appointment/meeting item in your Outlook calendar.
  2. Add new categories via the "Categorize" button on a calendar appointment/meeting in Outlook.

Microsoft® Excel instructions

  1. Open the “Calendar Analytics.xlsx” file on your desktop.
  2. Click the "Refresh Calendar" button embedded inside the "Who" or "What" worksheet.
  3. The interface will display prompting you to enter your full email address.
  4. Enter your full email address. Users with more than 1 email address may need to try each of them.
  5. Click Next.
  6. The interface will display prompting you to enter a start date and end date.
  7. Enter a start date and end date for the timeframes for the Dashboard to reflect.
  8. Click Next.
  9. The interface will prompt you for the user's aliases to add. You can add multiple.
  10. Type in users' aliases of whom you have permission (i.e. "Full details") to access their Outlook calendar and click Add.
  11. Click Next.Refresh the data
  12. On the PowerPivot tab in Excel, click “Update All”.
  13. Wait until PowerPivot Window has refreshed.
  14. Close the PowerPivot Window.
  15. On the Data tab in Excel click “Refresh All”.

Category Groups

  1. In addition to relying on Outlook categories, you group them into Category Groups. This will allow you to view groups of similar Outlook categories (for instance, grouping meetings into Projects, Administrative, Personal, etc).
  2. On the Categories worksheet in Excel, enter appropriate category groups in the right hand column.
  3. In order to see changes, repeat task 12 through 15 above

..." [GD: I copied the Overview and Instructions in full and cleaned up their formatting to make them easier to read...]

Interesting... Due to domain/credential issues I can't use this at my work (sigh) but still thought others might find this useful.

Here's some snaps of the xlsx on open with its included demo data.

What tab;

image

Who tab;

image

Details tab;

image

3 comments:

Eduardo said...

Hi, but i don't connecting with my exchange account, why i can´t connect?

Greg said...

That's hard to say, there's a number of variables, etc.

Best bet would be to contact the team responsible for the tool. Their blog can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bi/

Eduardo said...

Thanks Greg!