Book Image

Microsoft Tabular Modeling Cookbook

By : te Braak
Book Image

Microsoft Tabular Modeling Cookbook

By: te Braak

Overview of this book

Business Intelligence Semantic Models (BISM) is a technology that is designed to deliver analytical information to users through a variety of mechanisms that include model structure, definition, and design. This book demonstrates how to create BISM models so that information can be presented to users in an intuitive and easy-to-use format. Once the model is defined, we also show you how it can be managed and maintained so that the data in it remains current and secure. Microsoft Tabular Modeling Cookbook is an all-encompassing guide to developing, managing, creating, and using analytical models using the Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM). This title covers a range of modeling situations and common data analysis related problems to show you the techniques required to turn data into information using tabular modeling. Microsoft Tabular Modeling Cookbook examines three areas of tabular modeling: model development, model management and maintenance, and reporting. This book is a practical guide on how to develop semantic models and turn business data into information. It covers all phases of the model lifecycle from creation to administration and finally reporting. It also shows you how to create models which are designed to analyze data. All sections of BISM modeling from development to management and finally reporting are covered. The sections on development examine a wide range of techniques and tricks required to build models, including moving data into the model, structuring the model to manipulate the data, and finally the formulas required to answer common business questions; all of these are discussed in this book in detail. Finally, the book examines methods of reporting on the data within the model, including the creation of data-driven workbooks and reports for a powerful end user experience.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
12
Index

Grouping by binning and sorting with ranks


Often, we want to provide descriptive information in our data, based on values that are derived from downstream activities. For example, this could arise if we wish to include a field in the Customer table that shows the value of the previous sales for that customer or a bin grouping that defines the customer into banded sales. This value can then be used to rank each customer according to their relative importance in relation to other customers.

This type of value adding activity is usually troublesome and time intensive in a traditional data mart design as the customer data can be fully updated only once the sales data has been loaded. While this process may seem relatively straightforward, it is a recursive problem as the customer data must be loaded before the sales data (since customers must exist before the sales can be assigned to them), but the full view of the customer is reliant on loading the sales data. In a standard dimensional (star...