July 21, 2011 at 10:22 am
Hi Everyone,
I’m in the process of converting cubes from both Hyperion Essbase and Comshare MPC to MS SSAS cubes.
I’ve got the data and dimensions into the cubes and verified against the originals, but it’s been hard work using SQL to build the dimensions and building systems to maintain them.
Both Essbase and Comshare MPC had graphical front ends that allowed creating / updating the dimensions. This included ‘drag and drop’ to a different parent, multiple deletions/additions, etc.
The Comshare tool (MPC Decision Web) was based on an Analysis Services cube and handled all the dimension alterations behind the scenes.
Does anyone know of a similar tool for building/maintaining SSAS cubes?
We (well, our accountants) are quite happy to use Excel as our reporting tool.
p.s.
My first posting, so please forgive me if I’m in the wrong forum…
July 21, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I am not a Essbase specialist, but not sure what you are looking for.
It feels to me you are confusing two things -- building the cube (database, cube, dimensions, deploying, processing) and using the cube.
When the cube is build it cannot be changed. You can only fix some permissions (enable members, dims, facts, etc) for users, but I am not aware of any tool except for the BIDS, which will allow accountants to modify cube/dims.
Many third party tools can connect to SSAS cubes and either suck information from them or execute queries.
Some tools have very cool features to create sets, custom aggregations, etc, but it has nothing to do with SSAS. Excel is very limited in this sense.
So if feels to me you need that third party tool (example: Tableau), but it won't maintain SSAS cubes for you. The Cubes will stay as they are.
Sorry mate if I did not help
M.Sc.IT, M.B.A, MCTS BI 2008, MCITP BI 2008, MCTS SQL Dev, CSM, CDVDM
July 21, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Have a Look at cubeware.de! With 'importer' you can easily Transfer Data from One Database (olap and relational) to the other and do all modelling Tasks related with you cubes!
Hope this help!
July 25, 2011 at 8:21 am
Hi Guys,
Thanks for the replies, though I'm afraid neither would seem to match my requirements. We have dimensions that change fairly frequently, e.g. new Cost Centres from acquired companies, new Employees, new Products etc. With a lot of these changes, we cannot programatically determine the correct Parent and so our accountants are used to using the graphical front end we have to decide the hierarchy position and add the member as required.
FYI, I've attached a screenshot of the tool we use. You can see from the toolbar that siblings and descendants can be added/deleted and/or moved around the hierarchy. Closing the editor and saving changes forces a rebuild of the relevant dimension. We can also amend various attribues of the member, add formulae etc. in the bottom left area of the screen.
Looks as if I'm stuck with writing stored procedures, etc. for them!
Thanks again,
Richard
July 25, 2011 at 5:11 pm
This is very easy. Though not very, but it looks like you need to develop a similar application which would interrogate SSAS dimension(s), allow you to play with it this way (in memory or storage external to SSAS) and then write the results into a SQL table or text file.
Then you should invoke dimension processing job. Then processing of the cube may be required.
In some companies I worked for the IT would invest in a similar tool if it is vital for the business.
This is of course providing that you have very swift and switched on .NET developers, who can cook such app in days.
Cheers,
M.Sc.IT, M.B.A, MCTS BI 2008, MCITP BI 2008, MCTS SQL Dev, CSM, CDVDM
July 28, 2011 at 3:43 am
Hi Valek,
Thanks for the reply. I'll get in touch with our development guys and see how far I get...:-)
Richard
July 28, 2011 at 4:20 am
July 28, 2011 at 4:42 am
I've used BIDS to 'assemble' and process the cubes, but I can't find any way to add new children, parents etc., or a way to drag and drop from one part of the hierarchy to another. I've been looking in the Dimension Browser.
I'm currently achieving these actions by updating the relevant sql dimension table using sql code, and the reprocessing the dimension and the cube in BIDS.
Any help or pointers in the right direction gratefully received...
Cheers,
Richard
July 28, 2011 at 8:03 am
Did you have a look at Cuberware already? As i mentioned before you can do all medelling tasks necessary including manual creation of dimension elements and also moving them via drag and drop. After you have built your dimension in "Importer" you can deploy and process the cube, that´s it. In fact you can do much more with this tool, but also this manual task.
Cheers,
Andreas
July 28, 2011 at 10:18 am
Apologies Andreas,
I'd only looked at their 'Cockpit' product. The 'Importer' looks a lot more interesting!
I'll be in touch with Cubeware for further details, pricing etc.
Thanks for your help! 🙂
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