I am trying to match existing reporting functionality while building up a new cube for a Proof of Concept.
Can I retrieve data from my cube using an MDX query and put it into a recordset so I can then populate an Excel Sheet with the data?
Have you considered attaching from Excel directly to Analysis Services, and using the built-in drag-and-drop query functionality? Excel will generate the MDX for you.
I've never done it, but it should be possible to integrate ADOMD.NET into a VSTO application, which will then run inside Excel. You might also be able to access some of Excel's MDX query machinery directly that way....
Best way to work with OLAP and Excel is detailed here: Simpler interface for SQL Server analysis services cubes for end users
If you want to write your own MDX instead of using drag-drop, you can't do this with Excel as far as I know. However, most languages would let you fire off some MDX at a cube, and then you could loop the recordset yourself to create a CSV file.
Or even simpler, use SQL Server's Query Analyser like this, and save the results to a CSV:
SELECT TOP 100 * FROM OPENROWSET('MSOLAP',
'Datasource=MyHotServer;Initial catalog=MyLovelyCube',
'SELECT {dimensions(0).members} ON ROWS, {time.defaultmember} ON COLUMNS FROM sales')
(N.B. If you don't know MDX yet....don't start learning unless you really have to! It isn't as easy as SQL, and you can get away without it usually.)
Related
I am building a simple database with about 6-7 tables. I will be setting a schedule to do a clean import from a .txt file.
I want to take this data and create a report, like I would do in an excel spreadsheet, convert it to a pdf and post it to our company intranet for those interested to access it.
I'm trying to think of the best way to build my report. Would I just use an excel spreadsheet with a direct connection to the database? Would I create some sort of console application (c/c#/vb/vb.net) that would query the db, generate the report in an excel file, convert to pdf and save?
I'm quite comfortable in these different languages, just not as experienced in the reporting services (although I do have a lot of experience working with EXCEL and VBA Macros) but I want to get into it (SSRS) and get familiar with it as I will be doing a lot of projects like this in the future. This is seems like an easy one to get my hands dirty with and learn and build off of.
Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much!
My suggestion:
Create desired SQL queries to retrieve the data in desired form
Link these queries to your Excel sheet, perhaps directly in form of pivot tables for aggregation of results
Using VBA, you can easily create PDF from the data at the click of a button
The initial design will be time intensive, but after that, everything is automated and one just needs to press the button that creates the PDF.
How to link Access queries to your Excel file:
Data --> Get external Data
You can easily refresh all data whenever you open the Excelsheet by using the code below in the On Open event of the workbook:
ThisWorkbook.RefreshAll
If you need further clarification, do not hesitate to ask
If your end goal is to create a PDF that will be out on your intranet then I would create the report in SSRS. Then you can schedule it to run and output a PDF to your network location.
I've had good experiences using a pivot table in Excel which is a connected table to your SQL database.
In the connection parameters in Excel there is a field where you can define your SQL query, whether it be to call a stored procedure or just a simple SELECT statement.
The main reason I prefer a pivot table SQL connection rather than a normal table connection is because if you have a chart that references the connected table, the chart formatting will be reset when you refresh your connection (if you need to updated your report).
If I use a chart that references a pivot table (or a pivot chart) then the formatting is retained.
I have many SQL Server databases, each with a few tables containing important (from my point of view) information. I check the data (retrieving for example maximum or minimum value) within those tables using T-SQL queries.
Since I don't want to create views for each of the databases, I'm thinking about most convenient, easier and simply the best way to prepare summary which will be updating each time when opened.
The output file (or web page) will be used internally within technical team. All members can log into database using Windows authentication.
My idea was:
Excel + dynamic T-SQL --> I want to connect to database and execute T-SQL (cursor will go through all database names)
PowerShell (showing table using Out-GridView cmdlet)
PHP - first I will ask about all database names (executing select name fromsys.databases` and then execute query for each DB)
What is in your opinion best way? Do you have any better (from programmers point of view) way of getting such report/data?
You can use SSRS Reports .You have the options of exporting the report data to several formats such as pdf ,excel ,word .You can create a dataset for all your database .Since you are interested in showing aggregation and summation of values ,SSRS reports will be pretty useful in these cases .
Is it possible to query a table that is located inside Excel's worksheet? Specifically I am looking for SQL like SELECT and all it's features (sorting, grouping, filtering etc.)
Is it possible to display the result in a different worksheet and dynamically bind the two?
Sound like MS Query might be the tool for you. Basically it is a tool that connects to various external data sources from MS Office, and it can also connect to Excel from Excel. In Excel 2010 things get easier, but you are using 2007.
Check this or this or Google to find various examples of how to implement this.
I have an SSIS project where one of the steps involves populating a SQL Server table from an Oracle Table.
The Oracle table has a column ssis_control_flag. I want to pull across all records that have this field set to 'T'.
Now, I was wondering which would be the best way of doing this, and the two options as I have detailed in the question presented themselves.
So really, I am wondering which would be faster/better. Should I create a conditional split in the SSIS package that filters off all the records I want? Or should I create a view in Oracle that selects the records based on the criteria, and utilise that view as the data source in SSIS?
Or is there an even better way of doing this? You help would be much appreciated!
Thanks
Why don't you use a WHERE clause to filter the records, instead of creating a view? May be I am not getting your question correctly.
Then in general, bringing all the data to SSIS and then filtering out is not recommended. Especially when you can do the filtering at the source DB end itself. Consider the network bandwidth costs as well.
Then this particular filter that you are talking about here, cannot be done with a better efficiency in SSIS than that can be done at DB. Hence better do it in the Oracle DB itself.
You can use a query using openrowset as the source for the dataflow instead of directly accessing the Oracle table.
I am trying to reconcile data from a website and a database programmatically. Right now my process is manual. I download data from the website, download data from my database, and reconcile using an Excel vlookup. Within Excel, I am only reconciling 1 date for many items.
I'd like to programmatically reconcile the data for multiple dates and multiple items. The problem is that I have to download the data from the website manually. I have heard of people doing "outer joins" and "table joins" but I do not know where to begin. Is this something that I code in VBA or notepad?
Generally I do this by bulk inserting the website data into a staging table and then write select statments to join that table to my data in the database. You may need to do clean up first to be able to match the records if they are stored differently.
Python is a scripting language. http://www.python.org
There are tools to allow you to read Excel spreadsheets. For example:
http://michaelangela.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/python-excel-file-reader/
You can also use Python to talk to your database server.
http://pymssql.sourceforge.net/
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/devlin-python-oracle.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pydb2/
Probably the easiest way to automate this is to save the excel files you get to disk, and use Python to read them, comparing that data with what is in your database.
This will not be a trivial project, but it is very flexible and straight forward. Trying to do it all in SQL will be, IMHO, a recipe for frustration, especially if you are new to SQL.
Alternatively:
You could also do this by using VBA to read in your excel files and generate SQL INSERT statements that are compatible with your DB schema. Then use SQL to compare them.