SSAS Tutorial - Part I

I referred to MSDN SSAS Tutorial. It is very good. There are not many snapshots for steps in the tutorial. Ten lessons provided are a very good start for learning SSAS. I have covered first 3 chapters to start with. I am summarising few steps and notes based on my learning.


Lesson 1 - Defining Data Source and View

• Creating Data Source and Data Source Views we have checked in earlier examples
• Modifying the Fact and Dimension tables from default names is new learning in this lesson

Lesson 2 - Defining and Deploying Cube


Defining Dimension Steps
Creating Date Dimension and Specifying Attributes

Step 1 - Select the Date Dimension

Step 2 - Change Attribute type as shown below

Dimension Wizard

• Existing Table Date
• Date Key
• Full Date Alternate Key - Attribute - Month - Regular - Date - Calender - Date
• English Month Name rename to Month
• Calendar Quarter Attribute to Quarter
• Calendar Year Attribute to Year
• Calendar Semester Attribute to Half Year

Step 3

Defining a Cube


Step 1 - Adding Measure Tables

Step 2 - Selecting Measures

Adding Attribute to Dimensions

Step 1 - Under Dimension Structure drag and drop attributes as shown in below snapshot. Adding Product Attributes

Step 2 - Adding Customer and Geography dimensions

Lesson 3 - Modifying Measures 

Step 1 - Adding more measure in Cube Structure. Attributes added in measures from Fact Table. Properties changing names marked in below snapshot

Summary - This chapter focusses on

• Adding Named Calculation
• Creating Hierarchy

Step - Creating Hierarchy

Step - Adding Named Calcuation

Step - Mapping Customer Attribute to Customer Name

Browsing Cube

Display folder names created in previous steps now shows in the Cube Browser Left Side Display Areas

HIERARCHY Created also listed in below snapshot

Next list of posts will be for KPIs, Calculations.....

More Reads
Introduction to Data Warehouse - BI

Happy BI Learning !!!