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How To Optimise The Performance Of MDX Queries That Return Thousands Of Rows
One problem I encounter on a regular basis is how to optimise the performance of MDX queries that return thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of rows. The advice I give is always the...
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What the MDX Axis() Function Actually Returns
A month or so ago, before I went on holiday, I was working on a really cool MDX idea that involved the Axis() function. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten what that idea was but while I was working on it I...
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Power BI And SQL Server 2016 BI Announcements At PASS Summit 2015
This year’s PASS Summit is drawing to a close as I write this, and I have to say that the number of Microsoft BI-related announcements made over the last few days has been overwhelming. There have...
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First Look At SSAS 2016 MDX On DirectQuery
Following on from my last post covering DirectQuery in Power BI, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the way MDX queries are supported in SSAS Tabular 2016 CTP3 DirectQuery mode. There...
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Webinar Recording: Is OLAP Dead?
Yesterday I presented a webinar for the nice people at Pyramid Analytics, the first of two. I was paid for it of course (I have to earn a living somehow, you know), but the main reason I agreed to do...
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New SSAS, Power BI And SQL Server Training Courses For 2016
I’ve just added a number of new 2016 training course dates to the Technitrain site. If you’re looking for Power BI, Analysis Services, SQL Server or Data Science training in London then please check...
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Two New Books: “The Definitive Guide To DAX” And “’M’ Is For Data Monkey”
I’m not going to pretend that this blog post is a properly impartial review – I know the authors of both of these books to varying degrees – but I thought it was worth writing a few words on two new...
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Monitoring SSAS Multidimensional MDX Query Results Serialisation, Part 1
Profiler (or indeed XEvents) can tell you a lot of interesting things about what happens when SSAS Multidimensional serialises the resultset returned by an MDX query. To be honest, this isn’t something...
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Monitoring SSAS Multidimensional MDX Query Results Serialisation, Part 2
In part 1 of this series I looked at the basics of monitoring SSAS Multidimensional query resultset serialisation in Profiler. In this post, I’ll be taking a look at what happens for queries that...
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Disabling Excel PivotTable Grouping And Session Cubes In SSAS Multidimensional
The Excel PivotTable grouping functionality that is available when you are connected to an SSAS Multidimensional cube (but not a Tabular model) is a Very Bad Thing indeed. In my experience it is a...
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Finding All Selected Items In A Slicer In Excel 2016 Using TextJoin()
When you are using slicers with an Excel PivotTable it’s often useful to be able to get a comma-delimited list of the items selected in that slicer for use in a report title. It’s not easy to do...
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A Quick Look At Azure Data Catalog
I’ve been meaning to look at Azure Data Catalog for a long time but somehow never got round to it until now. I’m not sure why – perhaps it’s because there’s so much other cool stuff happening in the...
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Monitoring SSAS Multidimensional Non Empty Filtering Using Profiler, Part 1
Filtering out empty values is something that SSAS does a lot of during query execution, and it is also a common cause of performance problems. In this series of posts (similar to my series earlier this...
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Monitoring SSAS Multidimensional Non Empty Filtering Using Profiler, Part 2
In part 1 of this series I introduced all of the different types of non empty filtering that can occur in Analysis Services and MDX. In this post I’ll show you how you can monitor each of these types...
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New SSAS, Power BI And SQL Server Training Courses For 2016
I’ve just added a number of new 2016 training course dates to the Technitrain site. If you’re looking for Power BI, Analysis Services, SQL Server or Data Science training in London then please check...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two New Books: “The Definitive Guide To DAX” And “’M’ Is For Data Monkey”
I’m not going to pretend that this blog post is a properly impartial review – I know the authors of both of these books to varying degrees – but I thought it was worth writing a few words on two new...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monitoring SSAS Multidimensional MDX Query Results Serialisation, Part 1
Profiler (or indeed XEvents) can tell you a lot of interesting things about what happens when SSAS Multidimensional serialises the resultset returned by an MDX query. To be honest, this isn’t something...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monitoring SSAS Multidimensional MDX Query Results Serialisation, Part 2
In part 1 of this series I looked at the basics of monitoring SSAS Multidimensional query resultset serialisation in Profiler. In this post, I’ll be taking a look at what happens for queries that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Disabling Excel PivotTable Grouping And Session Cubes In SSAS Multidimensional
The Excel PivotTable grouping functionality that is available when you are connected to an SSAS Multidimensional cube (but not a Tabular model) is a Very Bad Thing indeed. In my experience it is a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Finding All Selected Items In A Slicer In Excel 2016 Using TextJoin()
When you are using slicers with an Excel PivotTable it’s often useful to be able to get a comma-delimited list of the items selected in that slicer for use in a report title. It’s not easy to do...
View Article