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

Creating a calculated table


Calculated tables are created dynamically using functions or DAX queries. They are very useful if you need to create a new table based on information in another table. For example, you could have a date table with 30 years of data. However, most of your users only look at the last 5 years of information when running most of their analysis. Instead of creating a new table you can dynamically make a new table that only stores the last 5 years of dates. In this recipe, you will use a single DAX query to filter the Master_Calendar_T table to the last 5 years of data.

How to do it...

  1. Open Model.bim in the Grid view and then select the Table menu and New Calculated Table.

  2. A new data tab is created. In the function box, enter this DAX formula to create a date calendar for the last 5 years:

            FILTER(MasterCalendar_T,  
            MasterCalendar_T[Date]>=DATEADD(MasterCalendar_T[Date],6,YEAR))

  3. Double-click on the CalculatedTable 1 tab and rename it to Last_5_Years_T...