Category Archives: MDX

Ten MDX Calculations For Your Cube (part 2)

February 28, 2012 Dustin Ryan 4 Comments

In this post I’ll conclude what I began in an earlier blog post covering ten of the most common cube calculations implemented for some of my clients. You can read the first blog post in this 2 part series here, which covers the first five calculations (in no particular order). As before, these calculations will be written against the Adventure Works 2008 R2 sample AS project.

5. Percent of a Parent

This is very common calculation that I’ve seen used countless times to determine what percentage of a measurement makes up the total measurement for a larger body. In this example, I’m calculating what percent of Internet Sales for a product make up the total Internet Sales for the product’s Sub Category.

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[MEASURES].[Percent of Parent]
AS
Case
// Test to avoid division by zero.
When IsEmpty
(
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
Then Null

// Test for current coordinate being on the (All) member.
When [Product].[Product Categories].CurrentMember.Level Is
[Product].[Product Categories].[(All)]
Then 1

Else ( [Product].[Product Categories].CurrentMember,
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount] )
/
( [Product].[Product Categories].CurrentMember.Parent,
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount] )

End
,
FORMAT_STRING = “Percent”,
VISIBLE = 1 , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’ ;

4. Rolling Average Calculation

Another common calculation used is one that calculates an average over the period of time, such as the monthly average of the past 12 months.

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[MEASURES].[Monthly Average Over Year]
AS

Avg
(
[Date].[Month Name].CurrentMember.Lag(11) :
[Date].[Month Name].CurrentMember,
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
,
FORMAT_STRING = “Currency”,
VISIBLE = 1 , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’ ;

3. Percentage Growth From Previous Period

If you’re wanting to measure the percentage of growth of a measure from a previous period, this is the calculation to use. A couple things to keep in mind: This calculation is hierarchy specific and is currently set up to measure the percentage of growth from the previous calendar year.

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[MEASURES].[Percentage Growth From Previous Period]
AS Case
// Test for current coordinate being on (All) member.
When [Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember.Level Is
[Date].[Calendar].[(All)]

Then “NA”

// Test to avoid division by zero.
When IsEmpty
(
(
ParallelPeriod
(
[Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year],
1,
[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember
),
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
)
Then Null

Else (
( [Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember,
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount])
–
(
ParallelPeriod
(
[Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year],
1,
[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember
),
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
)
/
(
ParallelPeriod
(
[Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year],
1,
[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember
),
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
End,
FORMAT_STRING = “#,##0.00 %;-#,##0.00 %”,
VISIBLE = 1 , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

2. Period to Date Average

This calculation is very similar to #4 up above but instead of giving you the average Internet Sales for the past 12 months, the calculation will return the average Internet Sales for the current period. For example, if you view this calculation at the day level, you will see the average daily Internet Sales for the current month.

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[MEASURES].[Average Over Current Period]
AS

Avg
(
[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember.FirstSibling :
[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember,
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
,
FORMAT_STRING = “Currency”,
VISIBLE = 1 , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’ ;

1. Top Products Percent of Sales

The last calculation I have to show you utilizes a named set to return to the top 10 best selling products. Many clients like to monitor the sales of their best selling products this way.

CREATE DYNAMIC SET CURRENTCUBE.[Top 10 Internet Products]
AS TopCount
(
(

[Product].[Product].Children
)
,10
,[Measures].[Internet sales amount]
), DISPLAY_FOLDER = ‘Sets’ ;

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[Measures].[Top 10 Products Internet Sales]
AS SUM([Top 10 Internet Products],[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]),
FORMAT_STRING = “CURRENCY”,
VISIBLE = 1 , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’ ;

You can also add a calculated measure to show the percentage of sales of those 10 best selling products.

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[Measures].[Top 10 Products Percent of Internet Sales]
AS SUM([Top 10 Internet Products],[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount])/
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount],
FORMAT_STRING = “#,##0.00 %;-#,##0.00 %”,
VISIBLE = 1 , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

If you have any other calculations which you think should be on this list and would love to share them, please send them my way. I’d love to see ‘em!

If you don’t consider yourself an MDX expert or are looking to eliminate some of the calculation development time, I’d highly suggest checking out BI xPress. BI xPress has a great feature built in that allows you to quickly and efficiently add calculations and named sets to your cube, all without the knowledge of MDX. Heck, most of the calculations in this blog post were written in about 10 seconds with the BI xPress Calculation Builder.

To open the BI xPress Calculation Builder, open your SSAS project in BIDS, navigate to the Calculations tab and click the BI xPress Calculation Builder icon.

This will open the MDX Calculation Builder Wizard. Select the Set template you’d like to use. I’m selecting the Top 10 Count template.

The first step is to select the attribute that you would like returned by the set. As before, I’m selecting the Product attribute of the Product dimension.

Lastly, select the measure.

And its really that easy.

To download the free trial of BI xPress, head over to PragmaticWorks.com and check out BI xPress. You won’t regret it after you see how much time it will save you with your SSAS and SSIS development.

MDX, SSAS

Using the Descendants Function

February 21, 2012 Dustin Ryan 1 Comment

The MDX function, Descendants, is a very versatile and commonly used function that returns the members at, below, or even above a specified level.

The first argument of the descendants function is a member or set expression. The second argument can either be a specific level expression or a number indicating the number of levels to travel. The following queries return the same results:

With Member [Measures].[Level Name] AS 
[Date].[Calendar].CURRENTMEMBER.LEVEL.NAME

Select {[Measures].[Level Name]} on 0,
Descendants(
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year].&[2007],    
    2) 
    on 1
From [Adventure Works]

GO

With Member [Measures].[Level Name] AS 
[Date].[Calendar].CURRENTMEMBER.LEVEL.NAME

Select {[Measures].[Level Name]} on 0,
Descendants(
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year].&[2007],    
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Quarter]
    ) 
    on 1
From [Adventure Works]

Results:

The Descendants also accepts a third optional argument: a string expression to distinguish between possible descendants to return in the results. This query uses the SELF_AND_AFTER flag to returns members at the specified level as well as members subordinate to the specified level.

With Member [Measures].[Level Name] AS 
[Date].[Calendar].CURRENTMEMBER.LEVEL.NAME

Select {[Measures].[Level Name]} on 0,
Descendants(
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year].&[2007],    
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Quarter],
    SELF_AND_AFTER
    ) 
    on 1
From [Adventure Works]

Results:

And this query uses the BEFORE_AND_AFTER flag to return all members except for the members of the specified level.

With Member [Measures].[Level Name] AS 
[Date].[Calendar].CURRENTMEMBER.LEVEL.NAME

Select {[Measures].[Level Name]} on 0,
Descendants(
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year].&[2007],    
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Quarter],
    BEFORE_AND_AFTER
    ) 
    on 1
From [Adventure Works]

Results:

Notice that the specified level is excluded.

Also, if I use the LEAVES flag, I can return all the leaf members between the specified member and the specified level. Alternatively, if you don’t specify a level, the members at the lowest level (the leaf members) will be returned.

With Member [Measures].[Level Name] AS 
[Date].[Calendar].CURRENTMEMBER.LEVEL.NAME

Select {[Measures].[Level Name]} on 0,
Descendants(
    [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year].&[2007],    
    ,
    LEAVES
    ) 
    on 1
From [Adventure Works]

Results:

Check out MSDN for more information on the Descendants function.

MDX, Pragmatic Works, SSAS

Creating Named Sets In Your Cube

November 26, 2011 Dustin Ryan

Named sets are simply MDX expressions defined with an alias that return a set of members. If you find yourself writing complex MDX expressions to return a set of members often or if you have a commonly used expression, consider creating a named set. This will prevent you from having to duplicate your work.

To create a named set, open your SSAS project and head to the Calculations tabs. Find the icon with the curly brackets and click it.

Give your named set a name. For this example, I’m using the Adventure Works 2008 R2 cube and I’m creating a named set to return the top ten products with the highest Internet Sales Amount.

The MDX to return the top ten products with the highest Internet Sales Amount is very simple. We will use the TopCount function, which accepts three arguments.

The first argument is the dimension attribute we wish to return. The second argument is how many members will be returned in the set, and the last argument is the measure we would like to use to rank the members returned.

If I wanted to create a named set to return the Bottom 10 Products with the lowest Internet Sales Amount, I could write the same expression seen below except in place of the TopCount function I would use the BottomCount function.

When we create our named set, we can specify it as a Dynamic Named Set or a Static Named Set. A Dynamic Named Set respects the context of the subcube and the where clause and is evaluated at the time the query is executed. A Static Named Set is evaluated at the time the cube is processed and will not respect any subcube context and slicers in your where clause.

Here is the calculation script for the named set:

CREATE DYNAMIC SET CURRENTCUBE.[Top 10 Products]
AS
    TopCount
    (
    [Product].[Product].Members,
    10,
    [Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
    )
     ;

The next time we process our cube, our named set will be available for use in our calculations and reports.

To use our named set in an MDX query, all I have to do is use the Named Set’s alias, [Top 10 Products].

Named Sets are powerful and very useful, but they can sometimes take a long time to write, especially if the expression is complex or if you are new to MDX. That’s where BI xpress steps in. BI xPress is a powerful tool used to speed up and augment SSAS and SSIS development. BI xPress also recently won the Gold Editors Choice Award from SQL Server Magazine.

To open the BI xPress Calculation Builder, open your SSAS project in BIDS, navigate to the Calculations tab and click the BI xPress Calculation Builder icon.

This will open the MDX Calculation Builder Wizard. Select the calculation or named set you would like to build. Scroll to the bottom to find the Sets templates. I’m selecting the Top 10 Count template.

The first step is to select the attribute that you would like returned by the set. As before, I’m selecting the Product attribute of the Product dimension.

Then select the measure that you want to use to rank the selected attribute. I’m selecting the Internet Sales Amount measure.

After I click next and give my calculation a name, the named set has been added to my calculation script in my cube.

MDX, Pragmatic Works, SSAS

Ten MDX Calculations For Your Cube

November 16, 2011 Dustin Ryan 8 Comments

I get lots of questions about how to implement various types of calculations in a cube so I figured I’d cover some of the more commonly used calculations I run into on a regular basis. All of these example calculations I’ll be providing were written against the Adventure Works 2008 R2 example cube but these should still work against later versions of the AW cube.

10. YTD, QTD, and MTD Calculations

These kinds of calculations are pretty common and I see these in a lot of cubes. They’re pretty easy to wire up since there are only a couple simple MDX functions necessary to make this work.

CREATE
MEMBER CurrentCube.[Measures].[YTD Internet Sales Amount] AS
Aggregate
(
PeriodsToDate
(
[Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year]
,[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember
)
,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
,FORMAT_STRING = “Currency”
,VISIBLE = 1
,DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’
,ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

Let’s start with the PeriodsToDate function. The PeriodsToDate function is going to return all the sibling members at the specified level up to the current member. The outer function, the Aggregate function, calculates the value based on the aggregation type specified in the cube for the measure. In our case, the Internet Sales Amount aggregation type is Sum, so the Aggregate function could be exchanged for the Sum function.

If I wanted to calculate the Month to Date for Internet Sales, I would simply exchange the reference for the Calendar Year level of the Calendar hierarchy with the Month level, as seen here:

CREATE
MEMBER CurrentCube.[Measures].[MTD Internet Sales Amount] AS
Aggregate
(
PeriodsToDate
(
[Date].[Calendar].[Month]
,[Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember
)
,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
,FORMAT_STRING =
Currency
,VISIBLE = 1
,DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’
,ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

9. Period over Period Growth

This is also a pretty common calculation I find and implement for my clients. It’s also pretty straight forward. In this example, we’re comparing this year’s Internet Sales Amount to the previous year’s Internet Sales Amount.

Create Member CurrentCube.[Measures].[Yearly Growth Internet Sales Amount]

As
([Date].[Calendar Year].CurrentMember,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount])-
([Date].[Calendar Year].PrevMember,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]),

FORMAT_STRING = “Currency”,
VISIBLE = 1 , DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’ , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’ ;

The function here to pay attention to is the PrevMember function. The PrevMember function returns the previous member at a given level based on the supplied member. For example, if the supplied member was 2011, the previous member would be 2010.

Create Member CurrentCube.[Measures].[Monthly Growth Internet Sales Amount]

As
([Date].[Month of Year].CurrentMember,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount])-
([Date].[Month of Year].PrevMember,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]),

FORMAT_STRING = “Currency”,
VISIBLE = 1 , DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’ , ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’ ;

Similar to our last calculation, if we wish to calculate the growth from month to month, we should reference the Month attribute of our Date dimension.

8. Profit Margin Calculation

Another popular calculation for obvious reasons is the calculation for profit margin. Basically all you need to understand for this calculation is the logic of a Case statement. We use the Case statement to check for a zero value in the denominator.

CREATE
MEMBER CurrentCube.[Measures].[Internet Profit Margin] AS
CASE
WHEN
IsEmpty([Measures].[Internet Sales Amount])
THEN NULL
ELSE
([Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
–
[Measures].[Internet Total Product Cost])
/
[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
END
,FORMAT_STRING = “Percent”
,VISIBLE = 1
,DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’
,ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

7. Percent of Total

More often then not, my clients want to be able to calculate the percent of a total amount for a hierarchy. In this example, I’m once again leveraging the Case statement.

CREATE
MEMBER CurrentCube.[Measures].[Percent of Internet Product Sales] AS
CASE
WHEN
IsEmpty([Measures].[Internet Sales Amount])
THEN NULL
ELSE
(
[Product].[Product Categories]
,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
/
(
[Product].[Product Categories].[All]
,[Measures].[Internet Sales Amount]
)
END
,FORMAT_STRING = “Percent”
,VISIBLE = 1
,DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’
,ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

To adapt this calculation to your cube, just replace [Product].[Product Categories] with your dimension and hierarchy.

6. Count Leaf Members of a Hierarchy

I’ve seen this kind of calculation used a lot in combinations with other measures and/or calculation. This calculation counts the Leaves, which are products, of the Product Categories hierarchy.

CREATE
MEMBER CurrentCube.[Measures].[Product Count] AS
Count
(
Descendants
(
[Product].[Product Categories].CurrentMember,
,LEAVES
)
)
,FORMAT_STRING = “#,##0.00;-#,##0.00”
,VISIBLE = 1
,DISPLAY_FOLDER = ’10 MDX Calculations’
,ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = ‘Internet Sales’;

There’s not much to this calculation. First we use the Descendants function with the Leaves function as the third argument to get all the Leaf members of the Product Categories hierarchy. Then we use the Count function to count those members.

While these calculations are not extremely complex, MDX can be a bit overwhelming. A very helpful tool that I’ve found useful, even as someone experienced with MDX, is the MDX Calculation Builder included with BI xPress. Adding calculations, like those seen above, is very easy and only take a few click with the wizard.

To open the MDX Calculation Builder, click the icon seen on the Calculations tab of your Cube Designer in BIDS.

After you click the Calculation Builder icon, the Calculation Builder wizard will open. The first thing you’ll need to do is select a calculation. At these step, we can also choose to create a named set, which the wizard will help us do.

After selecting the calculation, you’ll be taken through a couple more steps, such as selecting the Measure you wish to perform the calculation with or specifying which attribute to use as the Year attribute for the calculation.

You’ll also have the opportunity to apply conditional formatting to your measure values, which is a nice touch the end users like to see.

Finally, we’ll give our measure a name, select the measure group we’d like the measure to be a part of, select the formatting, and preview the calculation that was written by the tool.

Then we’ll click Finish. The calculation has been added to our calculation script within our cube.

BI xPress has made adding calculations to your cube simply and fast and I take advantage of the tool anytime I’m implementing calculations into my client’s cube. Head to PragmaticWorks.com to check out BI xPress and to check out some of the great training videos hosted there covering the in’s and out’s of MDX.

Stay tuned for my next blog post where we will cover the remaining 5 MDX calculations to add to your cube!

MDX, Pragmatic Works

MDX Calculation Builder Automatically Builds MDX Calculations for You

October 30, 2011 Dustin Ryan

One of the most powerful aspects of Analysis Services is the ability to easily view your facts over time. What’s not always so easily is writing those calculations that make time analysis possible. MDX can have a steep learning curve, which is where the BI xPress MDX Calculation Builder by Pragmatic Works steps in.

After installing BI xPress, you will very quickly and easily add calculations to your cube without having to write a lick of MDX. To access the MDX Calculation Builder, open BIDS and open your SSAS project. After opening the cube you would like create the calculations in, navigate to the Calculations tab of the cube designer. There you’ll see the Calculation Builder icon.

After you click the Calculation Builder icon, the Calculation Builder wizard will open. The first thing you’ll need to do is select a calculation.

You’ll have about a dozen different calculations to choose from, including Year to Date, Month to Date, and Year Over Year Growth, just to name a few. In this example, we’re going to create a Year Over Year Growth calculation. Next we’ll need to select our fact.

Then we’ll select our Year level attribute.

The third step is optional. We can apply conditional formatting to our calculation. In this example, if the measure is less than 0, the font will display red. Greater than zero, the font of the measure will display as green.

Lastly, we’ll give our measure a name, select the measure group we’d like the measure to be a part of, select the formatting, and preview the calculation that was written by the tool.

Then we’ll click Finish. The calculation has been added to our calculation script within our cube.

After processing the cube, we can test out our Year Over Year Growth.

And its that easy. In just four simple steps we’ve created our calculation without writing a bit of MDX.

The MDX Calculation Builder also allows you to build named sets just as easily. Of course, as you learn MDX, the MDX Calculation Builder won’t always be necessary. But it sure will accelerate your learning and make writing MDX calculations easier in the mean time.

Free Training, MDX, SSRS

SQL Saturday #86: BI Edition in Tampa, FL – Reporting on a Cube w/ SSRS 2008

October 24, 2011 Dustin Ryan

Next month on November 5th is SQL Saturday #86 in Tampa, Florida. But this is no ordinary SQL Saturday. This is SQL Saturday: BI Edition! Which means this SQL Saturday is going to be even more amazing, hard core, and in your face than usual! If you’ve never been to a SQL Saturday event, let me just say that you are missing out. And if you have been to one before, then you know exactly how awesome these events are. Whether you show up for the incredible FREE training from qualified industry pro’s, the networking with fellow SQL Server fiends, or the great lunch and snacks, you’re sure to have a good time.

So before you waste anymore time, head on over to their site and get registered. Check out the extensive list of sessions and speakers and plan your day.

Yours truly will be giving a session covering Reporting on a Cube w/ SSRS 2008 at 10 a.m. I’ll be covering some of the advantages the cube presents as a data source and how you can leverage the power of the cube with SQL Server Reporting Services 2008. So head on over to SQLSaturday.com and get registered before it’s completely full! We’re going to have a blast!

MDX, SSAS

MDX VBA Functions

October 17, 2011 Dustin Ryan

The Visual Basic for Applications library functions are a great way to extend the functionality of your MDX statements, allowing you to do some very handy stuff. Irina Gorbach has created a nice little document outlining the VBA functions available, so definitely check that out. There’s an important performance difference between the VBA functions and native MDX functions, which Irina points out.

One of the VBA functions I’ve been asked about by a couple people is the IsNumeric function. The IsNumeric functions returns a Boolean value indicating whether an expression can be evaluated as a numeric value. Here is an example (using the AW example cube) of how one might utilize IsNumeric:

With Member [Measures].[LastOrderYear] as

IsNumeric([Reseller].[Reseller].CurrentMember.Properties("Last Order Year"))

Select [Measures].[LastOrderYear] on 0,

[Reseller].[Reseller].children on 1

From [Adventure Works]

And here is what the results look like:

So check out the Irina’s document on the SSAS VBA functions. I think you’ll find it very informative and useful.

MDX, SSAS, SSRS

Showing an SSAS Hierarchy as Delimited String

October 11, 2011 Dustin Ryan

I recently encountered a requirement for a client to display a list of all the individual stores of a ragged hierarchy (the leaf members) on an SSRS report with a bunch of different measures. But they also wanted to be able to quickly see the the ancestor members of each level above each store quickly by using a tool tip to display the different ancestors.

Turns out there are a couple nifty, little MDX functions that can allow us to do this very easily. The Ancestors and Generate functions make this possible. Here an example I put together with the Adventure Works 2008 R2 cube so you can play along.

WITH MEMBER [Measures].[Management Structure] AS
            GENERATE(
            EXCEPT(({Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,6),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,5),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,4),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,3),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,2),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,1)}),[Employee].[Employees].[All]),
            [Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER.Name, " > ")

Select {[Measures].[Management Structure],
[Measures].[Reseller Sales Amount],
[Measures].[Reseller Order Quantity]} on 0,

NON EMPTY(DESCENDANTS([Employee].[Employees],10,LEAVES)) ON 1

From [Adventure Works]

Where [Employee].[Title].&[Sales Representative]

Pay attention to the calculate member [Measures].[Management Structure]. The way the Generate function works is that it takes one set and applies that set to each Member in another set. In this case, our first set is the ancestor from each level in our hierarchy of the current member, excluding the All member.

So this our first set:

EXCEPT(({Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,6),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,5),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,4),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,3),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,2),
                  Ancestors([Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER,1)}),[Employee].[Employees].[All])

Our second set is the Name property of the CurrentMember of the Employee hierarchy being displayed:

[Employee].[Employees].CURRENTMEMBER.Name

The Generate function actually also excepts a third argument: A delimiter. We can specify a delimiter. In my example, I use “ > “ to make the string a bit easier to read. If we execute the query we can see the results of our calculated member.

Pretty cool, huh? So now that we have each employees management hierarchy in sweet, little string, we can easily display this in a report as a tool tip.

I added the tool tip to the cell in my report’s tablix that contains the employee name. Here’s the expression I used:

=REPLACE(Fields!Management_Structure.Value,">",VBCRLF)

This expression replaces the “>” with a carriage return, line feed. Here’s what our tool tip looks like:

Using this method, we can easily display the managers for each employee in a tooltip without having to waste any real estate with additional columns.

I hope somebody finds this useful. I’m out!

MDX, SSAS

Daily Average Orders Calculation at Any Level of Date Hierarchy

August 5, 2011 Dustin Ryan 1 Comment

Today I was helping a fellow BIDN.com user come up with a calculation to figure out the average numbers of orders on day at any level of a date hierarchy. So I figured I’d post the calculation because 1) maybe it will be helpful to you and 2) I’m going to forget this calculation so I’ll at least be able to use this post as a reference.

WITH 
    //Gets a Summation of the Orders in the Fiscal period
    MEMBER [Measures].[Sum] AS 
    
        SUM([Date].[Fiscal].CHILDREN,[Measures].[Internet Order Count])
    //Counts the days in the Fiscal period
    MEMBER [Measures].[Count] AS 
    
        COUNT({DESCENDANTS([Date].[Fiscal].CURRENTMEMBER, [Date].[Fiscal].[Date])})
    //Divides the sum of orders by the count of days to calculate the average daily 
    //orders in that fiscal period
    MEMBER [Measures].[AvgDailyIntOrdCount] AS  
    
        SUM([Date].[Fiscal].CHILDREN,[Measures].[Internet Order Count])/
        COUNT({DESCENDANTS([Date].[Fiscal].CURRENTMEMBER, [Date].[Fiscal].[Date])})
        
SELECT     {[Measures].[Sum],[Measures].[Count],[Measures].[AvgDailyIntOrdCount]} on 0,    
{[Date].[Fiscal].Members} ON ROWS 
FROM
      [Adventure Works]

In the calculation, I use the SUM function to get an aggregations of the Internet Order Count for any level of the Fiscal Date hierarchy. I also used the Count function with the Descendants function to get a count of days beneath a member of any level of the Fiscal Date hierarchy.

It seems to work pretty good, but if you have an alternative way to calculate this, please post it in the comments section!

MDX, SSAS, SSRS

Use Date Picker Control with MDX Based Reports

July 26, 2011 Dustin Ryan

If you’ve done a couple cube based reports, you’ve run into the issue of the dates being in string format. Because the dates are strings inside your cube, you can’t use the neat little date picker control reporting services gives you for datetime parameters. While you as a developer may understand this issue, your "tech savvy" end users may not. Fret no more. Here is a quick and easy way to use the built in date picker control for parameters in your MDX reports.

1) In the Report Data pane of BIDS, open the parameter properties for the parameter(s) you are using to specify a date or begin and end dates and change the data type to datetime. Change available values to None.

2) Go ahead and delete any hidden datasets that populate the drop down lists for your date parameters. You won’t need those with the date picker control.

3) In your data set that populates your report, open the properties, and in the parameters view, you want to use an expression on the parameter value field. So instead of the parameter value containing something like "=Parameters!DateDate.Value", you want to change it to something like:

="[Date].[Date].&[" + Format((Parameters!DateDate.Value), "MM-dd-yyyy") + "]"

Keep in mind that you’ll need to perform step 3 on any data sets that use your date parameters.

The key is to format the expression in such a way that it looks exactly like the members of your date dimension. Once you do that, click preview and you have the beautiful and end-user friendly date pickers in your cube based reports!

You can also go back to your parameters to specify default values using today and/or dateadd (ex. "=dateadd("M",-12,today)").

One of the downsides to using the date picker control with reports using your cube is a data source is that if the end user selects a date in the date picker that is not in your cube, your report is going to blow up, so just be aware of that.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Data and Analytics with Dustin Ryan

Category Archives: MDX

Ten MDX Calculations For Your Cube (part 2)

5. Percent of a Parent

4. Rolling Average Calculation

3. Percentage Growth From Previous Period

2. Period to Date Average

1. Top Products Percent of Sales

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Using the Descendants Function

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Creating Named Sets In Your Cube

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Ten MDX Calculations For Your Cube

10. YTD, QTD, and MTD Calculations

9. Period over Period Growth

8. Profit Margin Calculation

7. Percent of Total

6. Count Leaf Members of a Hierarchy

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MDX Calculation Builder Automatically Builds MDX Calculations for You

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SQL Saturday #86: BI Edition in Tampa, FL – Reporting on a Cube w/ SSRS 2008

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MDX VBA Functions

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Showing an SSAS Hierarchy as Delimited String

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Daily Average Orders Calculation at Any Level of Date Hierarchy

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Use Date Picker Control with MDX Based Reports

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Dustin Ryan is a Data Specialist interested in Azure, SQL Server, and Power BI.

5. Percent of a Parent

4. Rolling Average Calculation

3. Percentage Growth From Previous Period

2. Period to Date Average

1. Top Products Percent of Sales

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10. YTD, QTD, and MTD Calculations

9. Period over Period Growth

8. Profit Margin Calculation

7. Percent of Total

6. Count Leaf Members of a Hierarchy

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Dustin Ryan is a Data Specialist interested in Azure, SQL Server, and Power BI.