About the Series ...
This is the ninth tutorial article of the series, MDX in
Analysis Services. The series is designed to provide hands-on
application of the fundamentals of MDX from the perspective of MS SQL Server
2000 Analysis Services ("Analysis Services,");
our primary focus is the manipulation of multidimensional data sources, using
MDX expressions in a variety of scenarios designed to meet real-world business
intelligence needs.
For more
information on the series, as well as the hardware / software requirements to
prepare for the tutorials we will undertake, please see the first lesson of
this series: MDX
Concepts and Navigation.
Note: At the time of writing, Service
Pack 3 updates
are assumed for MSSQL Server 2000, MSSQL Server 2000 Analysis
Services, and the related Books Online and Samples.
Introduction
In our
last tutorial, Calculated
Members: Further Considerations and Perspectives, we continued the exploration of calculated members that we began
in the previous lesson, Calculated
Members: Introduction. We discussed ways of handling the
creation of calculated members with MDX, and practiced the addition of multiple
calculated members in a single MDX query. We explored additional perspectives of calculated
members along the way, including format considerations. Finally, we exposed a
means for controlling the order in which calculated members are solved,
discussing why precedence of calculation might be critical in generating the
results we expect, and examining an instance where the SOLVE_ORDER
keyword made it possible to bring about the desired results in a returned
dataset.
Our work
with calculated members in the previous lessons brings us to a new
consideration: the selection and retrieval of member properties. In
this article, we will discuss the nature of member properties, providing
illustrations of how they can be used to help us to meet our business needs. We will then focus upon the selection of member
properties within our MDX queries, using calculated members. We will see how
MDX queries allow for the selection of member properties, which are defined for
the dimensions themselves, or on individual member levels. Member properties
can be useful within the realm of business intelligence, as we shall see with
the practice example that we explore together.