1. Extending and Creating Dynamics AX OLAP Cubes
Nigel Murdoch, Edgewater/Fullscope

2. OVERVIEW DEVELOPING THE DATA TIER DYNAMICS AX BI PROJECT WIZARD
Tables, Queries, Views and Perspectives
DYNAMICS AX BI PROJECT WIZARD
Deploying and Updating a Solution
WORKING WITH VISUAL STUDIO
Managing Solutions and Environments

3. OLAP CONCEPTS & TERMINOLOGY
CUBE
Data extracted from transactional systems and aggregated for fast query processing.
DIMENSIONS
Dimensions contain the unique values to analyze the Facts by – think of this as a Group By clause
Dimension Usage defines the relationship between the Facts and the Dimension members
Attributes are the Dimension member’s associated qualities or information
Hierarchies or defined relationships within a Dimension that provide nested navigational structures
FACTS
Facts are the transaction records – Sales Line, Purchase Line, etc.
Measures are the numeric values extracted from the Fact tables – Sales Amount
Keys are the fields within the Fact records that relate to members in the Dimensions – Customer Group ID, Item ID, etc.
MDX AND MORE
Calculated Measures and KPI’s are values defined in the OLAP cube to enable more complex logic
Aggregations, Partitions and Storage enable the control over storage and processing
Security Roles enable the definition of highly granular access to Dimension and Measure data
MDX

4. DEVELOPING THE DATA TIER
Tables, Queries, Views and Perspectives

5. DATA TIER STRUCTURE TABLES QUERIES VIEWS PERSPECTIVES
Use a table if the data it contains supports the requirement without the need to add data from other related tables.
QUERIES
Join Query – use when you need to augment the data in a table with data from a related table
Union Query – use when you need to combine and flatten multiple data tables into a single source
VIEWS
Use Views to control the output and format of data from tables and queries
Use View Methods to expose encapsulated business logic and complex calculations as field values
PERSPECTIVES
A Perspective is a container that holds the Tables and Views that become a Cube
Use a Perspective to define the usage of the Tables, Views and Fields
Define the formatting of fields in respect to Naming and Labeling

6. DATA TIER STRUCTURE – VIEW METHODS
private static server str durationMinutes() { tableName viewName = tableStr(BatchJobHistoryExpanded); str dataSourceName = identifierStr(BatchJobHistory); str field1 = SysComputedColumn::comparisonField( viewName, dataSourceName, fieldStr(BatchJobHistoryExpanded, StartDateTime)); str field2 = SysComputedColumn::comparisonField( fieldStr(BatchJobHistoryExpanded, EndDateTime)); return SysComputedColumn::divide( SysComputedColumn::getDateDiffWithFallbackToZero(field1, field2, SysComputedColumnDatePart::Second), SysComputedColumn::returnLiteral('60') ) ; }

7. DATA TIER STRUCTURE - PRECIDENT
PROPERTIES CAN BE SET ON:
EXTENDED DATA TYPE
TABLE/VIEW
PERSPECTIVE

8. DATA TIER STRUCTURE – EDT/FIELD
ANALYSIS LABEL
Determines the Attribute or Measure name
ANALYSIS USAGE
Auto, None, Attribute, Measure or Both
ANALYSIS DEFAULT TOTAL
Sum, Count, Min, Max, etc.
EXCHANGE RATE DATE FIELD
Date field used for Exchange Rate calculations
NOTE - If a table field has the same name as its table and you set the table field as an attribute, the attribute will not be generated.

9. DATA TIER STRUCTURE – TABLES/VIEWS
ISLOOKUP
Yes – Generates a Star Schema
No – Generates a Snowflake Schema
ANALYSIS DIMENSION TYPE
Auto – Generates Dimension and Measure Group
Transaction – Generates Measure Group only
ANALYSIS IDENTIFIER
Sets the Name Column property on the key attribute of the dimension
ANALYSIS DIMENSION LABEL
Names the dimension that is generated
ANALYSIS KEY ATTRIBUTE LABEL
Names the key of the dimension that is generated
ANALYSIS MEASURE GROUP LABEL
Names the measure group that is generated
NOTE - If you create a measure group by using a view, the relationship between the measure group and dimensions must be specified manually in Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) unless the view contains all fields of the backing table that are used to connect to a dimension.

10. DATA TIER STRUCTURE - PERSPECTIVE
Label
Determines the Cube Name for the Role Center etc.
Usage
OLAP Generates a Cube
SharedDimensionContainer
Specifies whether the Perspective contains Shared OLAP Database Dimensions

11. BI PROJECT WIZARD
Deploying and Updating a Solution

12. BI PROJECT WIZARD

13. BI PROJECT WIZARD

14. BI PROJECT WIZARD

15. WORKING WITH VISUAL STUDIO
Managing Solutions and Environments

16. VISUAL STUDIO – CREATING THE PROJECT

17. VISUAL STUDIO – PROJECT CONFIGURATION

18. VISUAL STUDIO – DATASOURCEVIEW

19. VISUAL STUDIO – EDIT NAMED QUERY

20. VISUAL STUDIO – CREATE DIMENSION (1)

21. VISUAL STUDIO – CREATE DIMENSION (2)

22. VISUAL STUDIO – CREATE DIMENSION (3)

23. VISUAL STUDIO – DIMENSION USAGE

24. VISUAL STUDIO – MEASURES, KPI & PARTITIONS

25. VISUAL STUDIO – SECURITY ROLES

26. Final reminders
CPE Credit Code: 53C2 Complete Surveys

27. Speaker contact info
Nigel Murdoch
MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, MCITP – Business Intelligence
Edgewater/Fullscope
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