Professional SQL Server™ Analysis Services 2005 with MDX

Chapter 9. Advanced Cube Design

You landed the job! You got the coveted "Cube Enhancement Analyst" position, which coincidentally requires you to read this chapter before starting. But are you even qualified to read this chapter? The answer is yes if you meet the following criteria: you learned about creating and browsing a cube in Chapter 5, and in Chapter 8 you learned about enhancing dimensions by using special dimension properties and by adding business intelligence — oh, and some understanding of MDX, which you learned in Chapters 3, wouldn't hurt either. Please review those topics if you are not confident in your understanding of them. Indeed, this chapter builds on what you have learned already, focusing on enhancements to your cube in support of specific business requirements. The focus here is on working with measures in your cube by modifying properties to change how measures appear in cubes and how values are aggregated. There is also focus on using enhanced dimension relationships which are new to Analysis Services. You also work with Actions, an enhanced feature, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), a new feature, to add functionality that helps end users view and interpret data efficiently. To implement many of the techniques described in this chapter, you use advanced MDX. In some cases, you can use the Business Intelligence wizard to simplify the addition of complex MDX. Once you have the design techniques mastered, attention is turned to techniques for managing ...