Book Image

MDX with SSAS 2012 Cookbook - Second Edition

Book Image

MDX with SSAS 2012 Cookbook - Second Edition

Overview of this book

MDX is the BI industry standard for multidimensional calculations and queries. Proficiency with this language is essential for the realization of your Analysis Services' full potential. MDX is an elegant and powerful language, and also has a steep learning curve.SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services has introduced a new BISM tabular model and a new formula language, Data Analysis Expressions (DAX). However, for the multi-dimensional model, MDX is still the only query and expression language. For many product developers and report developers, MDX is the preferred language for both the tabular model and multi-dimensional model. MDX with SSAS 2012 Cookbook is a must-have book for anyone who wants to be proficient in the MDX language and to enhance their business intelligence solutions.MDX with SSAS 2012 Cookbook is packed with immediately usable, practical solutions. It starts with elementary techniques that lay the foundation for designing advanced MDX calculations and queries. The discussions after each solution will provide you with a solid foundation and best practices. It covers a broad range of real-world topics and solutions and provides you with learning materials to become proficient in the language.This book will guide you through the hands-on and practical MDX solutions, best practices, and many intricacies that hide within the MDX calculations and queries. We will start by working with sets, creating time-aware, context-aware calculations, and business analytics solutions, through to the techniques of enhancing the cube design when MDX is not enough. We will then move on to capturing MDX generated by SSAS front-ends and using SSAS stored procedures, and we will explore the whole range of MDX solutions for real-world BI projects.  
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
MDX with SSAS 2012 Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Calculating moving averages


The moving average, also known as the rolling average, is a statistical technique often used in events with unpredictable short-term fluctuations in order to smooth their curve and to visualize the pattern of behavior.

The key to get the moving average is to know how to construct a set of members up to and including a specified member, and to get the average value over the number of members in the set.

In this recipe, we're going to look at two different ways to calculate moving averages in MDX.

Getting ready

Start SQL Server Management Studio and connect to your SSAS 2012 instance. Click on the New Query button and check that the target database is Adventure Works DW 2012.

In this example we're going to use the Date hierarchy of the Date dimension. Here's the query we'll start from:

SELECT
   { [Measures].[Internet Order Count] } ON 0,
   { [Date].[Date].[Date].MEMBERS} ON 1
FROM
   [Adventure Works]

Execute it. The result shows the count of Internet orders for each...