DXC Accelerator Pack Instructions
Instructions for downloading PowerBI desktop
The PowerBI Desktop App is required to be able to open the DXC Accelerator Pack file on a local PC (with the file extensions ‘.pbit’ or ‘.pbix’). As such this needs to be installed on a computer. It is common for this to be installed on your corporate machine as part of a standard installation of Microsoft software. If not, it can be downloaded free from Microsoft and installed on a PC. It may be that the IT team within an organisation will be needed to assist with this installation, or provide the required privileges to do so. We also recommend updating to the latest version of the PowerBI Desktop App.
Instructions for using on a corporation Azure environment
As an alternative to a local install on a PC, it is possible for the DXC Accelerator Packs to be hosted on an organisations Azure service and made available to users within an organisation via a web browser. This requires the relevant Azure licences being obtained by an organisation. Microsoft offer a wide range of up-to-date support and documentation on their website for both Azure and PowerBI, see Microsoft PowerBI on Azure. Users will most likely need to engage with their organisations Azure/PowerBI administrator.
Download a DXC Accelerator Pack & select the right version
There are three separate versions of the DXC Accelerator Pack as described below. In general they are all identical except for regional variances of data and hence analysis based on those variances, and branding.
The UK DXC and USA DXC versions are best suited for those wishing to rebrand to their own organisation requirements.
| Pack v1.1 | Description |
|---|---|
| UK DXC Version | Version for UK customers with generic DXC branding. This includes reports for UK geographical areas. |
| Scottish Government Version | Version for Scottish Government customers with Scottish Government branding. This includes reports for UK geographical areas. (UK) |
| USA DXC Version | Version for US customers with generic DXC branding. This includes reports for US geographical areas. |
Accessing your data and refreshing
Once PowerBI has been download and an DXC Accelerator Pack selected, the quick start quide will help users access data and keep it up to date.
Please be aware that the time to download and populate the data in the accelerator pack varies for each user as it is dependant on a number of factors, and as such it is not possible to accurately estimate the time it will take to undertake a data load or data refresh for each customer.
The main aspects that will affect the time include:
1. The volume of data from your organisation being loaded, including the count of lines;
2. The internet download speed experienced by your organisation and users individual computers;
3. The overall performance capability of your computer, and the resources your computer has allocated to PowerBI. Other applications and processes being run on your computer will affect this also.
Based on our experience of typical scenarios, the time to load every 10,000 lines of data can take 1 to 3 minutes, noting that most of our customers will wish to load data exceeding this volume of rows.
DXC recommend that customers use the Data Start Date variable to load into the Accelerator Packs only the data that is required for the analysis. Loading additional, possibly unecessary data from previous timeframes will slow the load process.
While the data is loading, a progress window will appear in PowerBI, which states the volume of data loaded into each data table. This can be used to confirm that the loading process is still being undertaken, and which stage it is at.
User Configuration Details
In order to access data, users will need the user specific information contained on the page linked below. Please use a standard Observatory login to access.
User Configuration DetailsObservatory login details are required to download resources.