Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services with MDX and DAX

Chapter 17

Enhancing Your Tabular BISM

What's in this chapter?

• Sourcing data for your model
• Understanding operations to enhance your model
• Enhancing with hierarchies and parent/child hierarchies
• Enhancing measures with distinct count and semi-additive measures
• Creating KPIs
• Creating perspectives
• Creating partitions
• Creating and applying security roles

In Chapter 16, you learned how to create a simple tabular project using the developer IDE Visual Studio 2010. This chapter walks you through the more advanced aspects of tabular projects; you enhance the tabular project you created in Chapter 16.

Sourcing Data for Your Model

The Analysis Services tabular model supports working with a diverse range of data sources through the use of installed providers. Many common data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, Informix, Sybase, IBM DB2, and other ODBC-compliant databases are supported using the appropriate provider. In fact, the tabular model not only supports all of the same sources as the multidimensional model, but it supports additional sources which were previously not supported.

Common sources of data that are supported by the tabular model include:

• Text files
• Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
• Microsoft Access databases
• OData feeds (Reporting Services, Azure DataMarket, other)
• Analysis Services cubes

These new sources of data provide the tabular model with a robust set of options for pulling data together without the need to preload the data into a SQL Server or other relational ...