We have a very sparse cube in SSAS. The size of the cube is only 50M bytes in MOLP storage. When writing your own MDX query, you can use NON EMPTY/NONEMPTY to suppress/filter out empty results. But we have a 3rd party tool (Cognos Analysis Studio) for our Business Users to run ad-hoc analysis against the cube. At first the users drag in dimensions and measures using Cognos Analysis Studio, the initial results come out with empty results. Then the users try to suppress the empty results. It takes an extremely long time to come up with non-empty results.
Since the MDX is generate by Cognos, we don't have control over how the MDX is generated to run against the cube. Our users using this cube are only interested in non-empty results. We'd like to know if there is a behavior control in a SSAS cube to always return non-empty results.
Question:
How can we set (or achieve) a cube-wide behavior to always suppress empty results?
I think the feature you're looking for is called "zero suppression". Click on “Settings”, “Suppress”,
“Zeros and Empty Cells”. This changes the default which will only suppress empty cells and not cells filled with zeros. Or, click on a column in the report. Click on the “Zero Suppression” icon at the top. Any row that is filled with zeroes will disappear.
You can google on "zero suppression cognos" to get more explanations about this.
I don't know if Cognos Analysis Studio allow using sets. If so, try creating non empty of dimension attribute against default cube measure in MdxScript. Then use this set instead of original dimension attribute.
For example
CREATE CURRENTCUBE.[Set1] as NonEmpty([Dim1].[Atr1].allmembers, [Measures].DefaultMember);
Related
I have found something I'm a little concerned about. Was trying to get a measure working and had it as a calc column previously so was comparing the 2 different outputs and checking for line by line differences. I picked a good one and investigated. calc column value was zero, measure value was £42. The calc column is correct. So i drilled into my measure to see what i could find. Alarmingly, I found that for a certain field called DocumentStatus the pivot showed it as "LIVE". But if I go to the table in visual studio and find that order the status is "COMPLETED". I have checked and rechecked. There is only 1 order on this table with the right DocumentNo. The pivot seems to think this order is LIVE but the source data definitely shows it as completed. What??? How can this happen?
So strictly speaking the measure is actually calculating correctly because it is seeing the order as live therefore picking the £42 value is correct for that formula. The calc column is correct because it is seeing the order as completed so picking zero as the final value is correct.
It is the fact that the record is being seen as both live and completed that is throwing me. I'm concerned to say the least. This feels like a bug. I have checked and have no other filters in play. I have checked other ways too - like filtering on all orders with a £42 value in a particular field - none of the have a LIVE status. Its almost like that field is misaligned in the background.
Has anyone ever seen this?
TIA
SSAS Tabular; SQL Server 2016, Visual Studio 2017
Edit 5 Jul:
Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately I cannot provide sample data due to strict confidentiality. I have provided 2 screen shots below, both showing the same record - (1) is the view from the excel pivot table that is connected to the ssas tabular data model (2) is the view of the table in Visual Studio (note how the value of the Accrued Income measure in this view is not the same as the AccruedIncome total in the excel pivot table)
I am wondering if this is to do with the way that I have deployed recent edits to the data model. Every time I make a change I am running the deploy & build commands so that I can refresh the excel reports to see if they are working as intended. What I don't know is when I do this am I deploying the metadata only or the metadata and the actual data (several hundred thousand rows on a dozen or so tables)? Is the issue here that the pivot is looking at an older set of data than the dataset visual studio is looking at? When I deploy & build do I then need to process the SSAS tabular object to update the data?
Also note how the DocumentStatus is different in the 2 views.
Excel pivot
Visual Studio
I have the following problem:
When I process a cube in SSAS and view the data as a normal user without restrictions all is well and the aggregated results show their normal values.
When I choose inside Data Tools (MsSQL 2012) to view the data as a specific role then all the security constraints work normally (For example I view only the Specific country data and no other) but all the corresponding values are (null).
I have tried Visual Totals = true and I have imposed those restrictions on both the dimension and the cube. The CALCULATE in calculation script is still there (everything works ok when I choose to use a normal user).
This is happening on both the measures and the calculated values!!!
Any ideas what could be happening?
Solved.
This problem had to do with cell data!!!
The Data Tools studio automatically checks the enable Cell Data permissions checkboxes in the respective tab.
If no MDX query is defined in these, then it is automatically assumed that you have no permissions to view any aggregated measure data!!!!
Uncheck them or define the proper MDX query and the problem will be fixed!!!!
I have been doing SQL for a while and I've always been satisfied to use the Results to Grid found in SSMS.
Now I have a series of queries that I am running and I would like to have some very simple formatting of the results. Currently neither the Results to Grid nor the Results to Text do quite what I would like to do.
A few things I would like to do so it is easier for me to read is
Remove the text that says '# row(s) affected' (found in the Results to Text)
Make the columns not so wide in the column aligned Output Format (part of the problem is that the Maximum Number of Characters does not appear to go below 30 - is this my data that forces this?)
If I cannot format the output (even to a text file) what other options do I have ?
I spent some time looking at SQL Server -> PHP -> HTML as well as SQL Server -> Reporting Services -> MS Report Builder but quite frankly it seems like overkill to put a few spacers and pretty up the headings a bit.
I feel like I am missing something here ... I would rather not go through the hassle of all that installation of PHP and what not just to be able to look at my data a little bit prettier.
Remove the text that says '# row(s) affected' (found in the Results to Text)
Put this SET NOCOUNT ON at the top of your sql
Make the columns not so wide in the column aligned Output Format (part
of the problem is that the Maximum Number of Characters does not
appear to go below 30 - is this my data that forces this?)
Yes its the size of the field that does this. You can cast it cast(field as varchar(20)to make it smaller if you know you won't lose data.
It all depends on what you want to do with the formatted results.
For quickly reading / formatting a result that isn't great when viewed directly in Management Studio, I use Results to Grid, select all with headers (by right-clicking on the upper-left corner of the grid), and copy/paste into Excel. From there it's easy to do basic tinkering with column widths and formatting. The biggest downside for me is dates are never quite right out-of-the-box, but it's always a quick fix.
Excel also makes a good interim stop for basic formatting when I'm pasting query results into an email.
It might be overkill in some cases, but I suspect much less so than using PHP -> HTML or Reporting Services -> MS Report Builder.
I am going to design a report using SSRS 2005. Is it possible to have the selection of dataset done dynamically?
Let's say I am going to have two tables, where the first one is the summary and the second is the detail data. One of my parameters (with values Summary and Detail) will determine which version of the report is to be displayed. Can I have two different datasets, and while clicking the view report button in parameter view dialog (or before) set which dataset which will be used?
You can use the single data set by using switch statement some thing like this:
You can type this in data tab but the results can be seen only in preview tab, but not the data tab like regular queries.
=Switch(Parameters!ToDecide.Value = "Summary",
"Your query for Summary",
Parameters!ToDecide.Value = "Detail",
"Your query for Detail")
Make sure you don't have any excess spaces with in the query(not more than one space where needed)
Both the queries should return the values required by the Table in Layout.
You'll probably have to have 2 pairs of table contained in, say, a rectangle, and hide the unused one (at the container level). Or use subreports.
If you find a way to switch datasets, then you'll have to make sure that all columns are the same as well as making sure that any functions using the DataSet as a scope parameter are changed too... which makes me think it just isn't supported.
You might want to try using a single dataset and having a summary and detail data region (table, list, etc.) in the report, one of which is visible and one of which is not. In this scenario, the dataset is only evaluated once and you are still meet your requirement.
Hope this helps,
Bill
It would be easier to create and maintain if you have two separate tables and hide one or the other depending on the choice made.
I haven't tried this, but I think another possibility would be to use three reports: a container, a summary subreport, and a detail subreport. Switch between the subreports according to the choice.
There is a performance gotcha to the first implementation though. SSRS will try to fill every DataSet in the report when it loads, even ones that are not used in the report's output or by other DataSets or expressions. In other words, just because you're displaying the summary report, doesn't mean that you're not asking the database to fill out your detail data as well.
There is a workaround that can improve the performance a bit, but will still end up with a trip to the server. The hack is to set a flag parameter to determine whether or not the query should actually return any real results or if it should just return the columns you want.
You may try adding condition that depends on a cetain parameter to execute. Then from there, You may use different data set. Assuming that you'll use it on separate hidden tablix.
I would like to cross-reference construct a distance chart similar to the one here (example is a road-distance cross-reference chart) and, ideally, store the data in SQL Server 2008 (preferably the Express version). It needs these properties / abilities
Every column has a corresponding row with the same name (ie. not misspelled like my example).
Changing the value at one Row-Column intersection would update the mirror intersection (Column-Row) or the mirror data could be ignored.
The distance-values would need to be end-user editable.
The end-user would need to be able to add, delete or rename a column/row pair.
The end-user needs to be able to sort the columns and have the rows move automatically.
There could be hundreds of pairs.
a look-up query needs to find a distance given a start & destination (Row & Column)
The distance chart is reasonably straightforward to implement in Excel. Considering this, am I better off...
Using Excel as the user editing UI and then updating an SQL 'thing' with the new data?
Using Excel as the data-source even if it means performance issues with querying the data?
Using an as-yet undiscovered stroke of genius detailed here in an answer?
Sure looks like an Excel application to me, start to end. (heh)
I can't imagine your users typing enough data in to make performance an issue. Excel will only take 32757 rows by ditto columns. If that's enough, I'd say you're golden.