Re: HELP I am about to quit on AS2005

Hi Peter,

Since your list of gripes is rather expansive, below are the responses
that readily come to mind. But if you haven't taken an SSAS class or
read a book, the learning curve's going to be harder to negotiate:


* I miss 'reverse engeneer' functinality for a deployed solution, so it
can
me modified and/or learned from. This is a basic feature in all design
software, so why not here?

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365361.aspx

SQL Server 2005 Books Online
How to: Create an Analysis Services Project Based on an Existing
Analysis Services Database
New: 14 April 2006

You can create a new project in Business Intelligence Development Studio
by using the Import Analysis Services 9.0 Database template. Creating a
new project by using the Import Analysis Services 9.0 Database template
creates a project containing all of the objects in the existing Analysis
Services 9.0 Database. These objects can then be modified within the
project, without immediately affecting the existing database, and the
modified object in the project can then be deployed to the same Analysis
Services database or to a newly created Analysis Services database for
comparison testing.
...





* The graphical representation of tables (with interconnecting lines) in
VS2005 is a joke. Try to arrange tables in a logical manner with
straight
lines. There is an auto layout function I found, but I find it all to
work
very unnatural and it usualy ends up doing unintended things such as
forcing
loops instead of a staight line where even a child can see what my
intenton
is.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174848.aspx

SQL Server 2005 Books Online
Working with Diagrams in a Data Source View (Analysis Services)
...
To reduce the visual clutter when you only want to view a subset of the
tables in the data source view, you can define sub-diagrams (simply
called diagrams) consisting of selected subsets of the tables, views,
and named queries in the data source view. You can use diagrams to group
items in the data source view according to business or solution needs.

You can group related tables and named queries in separate diagrams for
business purposes, and to make it easier to understand a data source
view that contains many tables, views, and named queries. The same table
or named query can be included in multiple diagrams except for the <All
Tables> diagram. In the <All Tables> diagram, all objects that are
contained in the data source view are shown exactly once.
...



* Attributes that do not form a hierarchy (even if one level), cannot be
put
on any of the axes in an MDX query. They can be presented using
properties,
but not in a way that allows reporting. For base tables this is pretty
wasteful and an unnececary restriction.

When you need to place an attribute on MDX query axes, why wouldn't you
enable its attribute hierarchy? The need for .Properties() should be
greatly reduced:

http://sqljunkies.com/WebLog/mosha/archive/2005/10/11/mdx_functions_as20
05.aspx

MDX functions in Analysis Services 2005
...
Bad/Deprecated functions

Some functions are supported by AS2005 for backward compatibility
purposes, but either deprecated (which means that they could be removed
in the future release) or simply bad to use. The worst offenders are
listed below
...
..Properties

Use of .Properties should be avoided as much as possible. Filtering by
member properties should be rewritten by using CrossJoin (or Exists).
Lookups should be rewritten by using related attributes and
..MemberValue. There are very few reasons to use .Properties.
...



- Deepak

Deepak Puri
Microsoft MVP - SQL Server

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: HELP I am about to quit on AS2005
    ... Create an Analysis Services Project Based on an Existing ... Analysis Services Database ... Working with Diagrams in a Data Source View ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.olap)
  • Re: SSMS: create datasource and datasource view
    ... > In SQL Managment studio you may create Analysis services database object ... > but not Data source, Data source view, Data mining structure, Data mining ... Go to File->Open->Analysis Services Database ... > you delete Datasource and deploy solution, ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.datamining)
  • Re: SSMS: create datasource and datasource view
    ... >> In SQL Managment studio you may create Analysis services database object ... >> but not Data source, Data source view, Data mining structure, Data mining ... Connect to existing database ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.datamining)
  • Re: SSMS: create datasource and datasource view
    ... >> In SQL Managment studio you may create Analysis services database object ... >> but not Data source, Data source view, Data mining structure, Data mining ... Connect to existing database ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.datamining)
  • Re: Relational to DW.?
    ... Analysis Services for some time. ... data on the same server. ... > interesting question......I assume your 'relational database' is for a ... > just finished it but have not put the pointer to it on my web site ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse)