As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Analysis Services perspectives are similar to views defined in the relational database. Each multidimensional SSAS project could contain multiple cubes, several measure groups, hundreds of measures, many hierarchies, and thousands of attributes. Many cube users might only need a subset of these attributes to get their job done. Including unnecessary options in the reports and analytical views could simply confuse data consumers; instead, you should try to expose only the essential attributes to each user group by defining perspectives. Unlike relational views, perspectives should not be used for implementing security; they are simply intended to conceal the complexity of your solution.
The Adventure Works sample multidimensional database contains several perspectives, for example, the Direct Sales perspective exposes Internet Sales, Internet Orders, Internet Customers, and Exchange Rates measure groups, whereas the Finance perspective...