Sunday, July 15, 2018

SSAS Calculations: How to deploy calculation changes quickly in a cube?

If your SSAS solution is multidimensional then you may have at least a few calculated measures in your cube. And every time you change MDX script under calculation you need to process the cube; though only default process will effect the changes in the cube but still you may spend sometime for processing the cube.

If the cube is bigger  and have many partitions then you may easily spend good amount of time for processing the cube every time; even though you modify a very little part of MDX script.

To avoid processing the cube every time you change MDX script, you can use BIDS helper which will save development time. Though BIDS helper can help many ways in MS BI development, however; this writing only include MDX deployment part of SSAS multidimensional cube.

BIDS helper is an extension to Visual studio, So first step will be to download the extension, you will find  Extension and Update under Tools in Visual studio as like below figure 1

Fig 1: Find Extension and update


Then you can search BIDS helper and install it as like figure 2:

Fig 2: Search and install BIDS extension


After you complete the installation, please restart visual studio. And as long as you open your multidimensional cube you will find new icons under the calculation tab. The new icon look like below figure 3:

Fig 3: New BIDS helper icon


If you mouse over the icon it will display ''Deply MDX Script", as long as you click the icon it will deploy the MDX script to the cube immediately. So you don't need to process the cube at all.






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