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

Using the DATEDIFF function


The DATEDIFF function returns the values between two dates given a specific date interval. You can use this function to determine the number of days between today and the first day of the year. You could also calculate the number of months between date values.

Available options for the date interval are:

  • SECOND

  • MINUTE

  • HOUR

  • DAY

  • WEEK

  • MONTH

  • QUARTER

  • YEAR

Getting ready

Create a new measure to calculate the minimum date in the Calc_Date_T. This value will be used to calculate the number of years from the first crash reported to today. In this case, 11/27/2016:

  1. Open the Model.bim to the Calc_Date_T table.

  2. In the measure creation area, click on an empty cell to create a measure to minimum date:

            Min_Crash_Date:=MIN(Calc_Date_T[CRASH_DATE]) 
    

How to do it...

  1. In the measure creation area, click on an empty cell to create a measure to return the current date and time:

            Years_Since_First_Accident:=DATEDIFF( 
            [Min_Crash_Date],TODAY(), YEAR) 
    

    The result...