SSAS file extentions (exclude from anti-virusscanner)

Here’s a complete list of all the file extentions which SSAS uses. You may want to exclude these when you’re running an anti-virus scanner on your server:
http://phoebix.com/2013/07/23/excluding-analysis-services-files-from-anti-virus-scanning/


.ahstore
.asstore
.asstoreidx
.astore
.bin
.bsstore
.bstore
.cub
.data
.det
.dim
.ds
.dstore
.hdr
.hstore
.khstore
.ksstore
.kstore
.lstore
.map
.ostore
.prt
.sstore
.xml


A list of all the ‘Data Directories‘ can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc281997.aspx

SSRS/MDX Parameter values based on a (filtered) dimension (which actually relates to records in the facts)

[Dim Period] dimension values:
For this demo, I have a dimension called [Dim Period] in my SSAS cube which looks like:

All values
So here’s how you could diplays all values (children) of a certain dimension:

Filtered by NOW()/FORMAT

([Dim Period].[Id].&[200701] : StrToMember("[Dim Period].[Id].&[" + Format(Now(), "yyyyMM") + "]")


Filtered by HAVING

HAVING NOT ISEMPTY([Measures].[--Value--])


Code
Here’s the MDX script I used:

--All members in the [Dim Period] dimension:
WITH
MEMBER [Measures].[ParameterCaption] AS [Dim Period].[Period Description].CURRENTMEMBER.MEMBER_CAPTION
MEMBER [Measures].[ParameterValue] AS [Dim Period].[Id].CURRENTMEMBER.UNIQUENAME
SELECT
{
[Measures].[ParameterCaption]
,[Measures].[ParameterValue]
} ON COLUMNS,
ORDER([Dim Period].[Id].CHILDREN,[Dim Period].[Id].CurrentMember.Member_Name,DESC) ON ROWS
FROM [CUBE]

--Filtered based on the current date:
WITH
MEMBER [Measures].[ParameterCaption] AS [Dim Period].[Period Description].CURRENTMEMBER.MEMBER_CAPTION
MEMBER [Measures].[ParameterValue] AS [Dim Period].[Id].CURRENTMEMBER.UNIQUENAME
SELECT
{
[Measures].[ParameterCaption]
,[Measures].[ParameterValue]
} ON COLUMNS,
ORDER([Dim Period].[Id].CHILDREN,[Dim Period].[Id].CurrentMember.Member_Name,DESC) ON ROWS
FROM
(
SELECT
--Here's a trick that will work on date/time values:
([Dim Period].[Id].&[200701] : StrToMember("[Dim Period].[Id].&[" + Format(Now(), "yyyyMM") + "]")
) ON COLUMNS
FROM [CUBE]
)

--But for other non time related dimensional members, you need to a different method:

WITH
MEMBER [Measures].[ParameterCaption] AS [Dim Period].[Period Description].CURRENTMEMBER.MEMBER_CAPTION
MEMBER [Measures].[ParameterValue] AS [Dim Period].[Id].CURRENTMEMBER.UNIQUENAME
SELECT
{
[Measures].[ParameterCaption]
,[Measures].[ParameterValue]
} ON COLUMNS,
ORDER([Dim Period].[Id].CHILDREN,[Dim Period].[Id].CurrentMember.Member_Name,DESC)
HAVING NOT ISEMPTY([Measures].[BS Balance])
ON ROWS
FROM [CUBE]


SSAS Ragged Hierarchy (BottomUp approach)

Hi there reader!
There are a couple of methods on how to populate so called ‘ragged hierarchies’ in SSAS, a few tricks:

Naturalizing a Parent-Child Hierarchy:
http://martinmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/the-ssas-financial-cubepart-1ragged-hierarchies/

TopDown and hide middle levels:
http://asmdx.blogspot.nl/2008/04/parent-child-hierarchy-to-level-base.html

BottomUp approach by Chris Webb (Ragged Hierarchies, HideMemberIf and MDX Compatibility):
http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/ragged-hierarchies-hidememberif-and-mdx-compatibility/

I really liked the BottomUp approach that Chris Webb proposed. This is how a TopDown-hierarchy looks like:

And here’s the BottomUp-hierarchy we’re going to be using for this demonstration:

First things first, here’s the cube’s structure:

Define the relationships (nothing fancy here):

Here’s where the magic happens! Set the HideMemberIf-property to ‘OnlyChildWithParentName‘, so basically hide the child when it has the same name as its parent.

And here’s the result of that hard work:

Important note
This method works for Excel without setting the “MDX Compatibility = 2” requirement, but in SSRS and your MDX query it will only return those records which have no hidden levels. Strange issue, I suggest you make another seperate hierarchy for reporting that has the HideMemberIf property set to ‘Never’ for all levels.

MDX Cheat Sheet

I’ve Googled for MDX Cheat Sheets, found a couple, but never exactly what I was looking for.
So I made my own, hope this one explains things a lot easier for you (and also as a reference for myself) 😉

Hierarchy:
For the demo, I’m using a Year(2014)/Month(201401) hierarchy in my SSAS cube which looks like:

Code:

Results:

Here’s a more graphical explanation on how things work:

Download it!
SSAS MDX Cheat Sheet

Here’s another MDX Cheat Sheet I posted after, all about Calculated Measures:
https://clinthuijbers.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/mdx-cheat-sheet-calculated-measures/