Book Image

Tabular Modeling with SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services Cookbook

By : Derek Wilson
Book Image

Tabular Modeling with SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services Cookbook

By: Derek Wilson

Overview of this book

SQL Server Analysis Service (SSAS) has been widely used across multiple businesses to build smart online analytical reporting solutions. It includes two different types of modeling for analysis services: Tabular and Multi Dimensional. This book covers Tabular modeling, which uses tables and relationships with a fast in-memory engine to provide state of the art compression algorithms and query performance. The book begins by quickly taking you through the concepts required to model tabular data and set up the necessary tools and services. As you learn to create tabular models using tools such as Excel and Power View, you’ll be shown various strategies to deploy your model on the server and choose a query mode (In-memory or DirectQuery) that best suits your reporting needs. You’ll also learn how to implement key and newly introduced DAX functions to create calculated columns and measures for your model data. Last but not least, you’ll be shown techniques that will help you administer and secure your BI implementation along with some widely used tips and tricks to optimize your reporting solution. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained hands-on experience with the powerful new features that have been added to Tabular models in SSAS 2016 and you’ll be able to improve user satisfaction with faster reports and analytical queries.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Tabular Modeling with SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Adding new data to a tabular model


In this recipe, you will download external data and then add it into the model. The data is freely available from the state of Iowa and is a list of all crashes recorded by date. It includes many columns of data that you will use to build a model in the remaining chapters.

Getting ready

Depending upon your setup you may need to install Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable in order to enable importing data from Excel. For this recipe you will be using data vehicle crash data provided by the state of Iowa. Download the csv file of the data here: https://data.iowa.gov/api/views/bew5-k5dr/rows.csv?accessType=DOWNLOAD. Once downloaded, open the csv in Excel and save it as Iowa_Crash_Data.xlsx. There are several fields in the file that will be used to create and enhance the model:

  • CRASH_KEY - UNIQUE RECORD IDENTIFIER

  • CRASH_DATE - DATE OF CRASH

  • FATALITIES - NUMBER OF FATALITIES

  • MAJINJURY - NUMBER OF MAJOR INJURIES

  • MININJURY - NUMBER OF MINOR INJURIES...