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

Understanding DAX formulas


There are two basic types of DAX formulas. The most common one that you will use performs a function on the data to return a value. The other returns data as a table most commonly used to create a new dataset or is used as input for another function. To create any DAX formula, you need to understand the basic syntax. This recipe explains how the Count_of_Crashes formula works and creates the formula using Power Pivot in Excel.

Getting ready

This recipe will use the Chapter 9 Power Pivot.xlsx workbook available from the Packt Publishing website.

How to do it...

  1. Open the Chapter 9 Power Pivot.xlsx workbook and click on the Power Pivot menu.

  2. Then select the Measures tab and New Measure.

  3. The Measure window will open.

  4. Enter Count_of_Crashes in the Measure Name, and in the Formula area enter 

            =COUNT([CASENUMBER])
  5. Finally, change the Category to Number, Format to Whole Number, and check the Use 1000 seperator (,),and hit OK to close the window.

How it works...

In this...