SSAS Design & Incremental Processing - PASSMN May 2010
Modifying and Creating SSAS Cubes for Dynamics AX2012 Linked In Edit
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5. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 +R2 +R3 +Demand Planner
Accounts
Payable
Accounts
Receivable
Budget
control
Budget
plan
Inventory
value
Retail
Human
Resources
Payroll
TAM
Demand
Forecast
Forecast
Accuracy
15. • Connection uses AS Role Security
• Leverage familiar Pivot Table/Chart tools to Explore and
Visualize Cube data
• Use Excel Addins – Power Query, Power Pivot
16. • Use OLAP Tools to create and test
• MDX Calculated Measures
• MDX Calculated Members
• MDX Sets
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18. • Use Import data – for OLAP Cubes
• Access to:
• Measures & Calculated Measures
• Dimension Attributes & Hierarchies
• KPI Data
The Dynamics AX database is an OLTP (Online Transactional Processing) database optimized to handle a high volume of concurrent user transactions and queries
Data is extracted from the OLTP database and stored in an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) database
The data in the OLAP database is stored in Cubes of pre-aggregated data that is optimized for reporting and analytics query workloads
This architecture improves BI query performance and alleviates contention on the Production database
With the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 3 additional SQL Server Analysis services cubes are included – which brings the total number of SSAS cubes to 20.
Foreign Currency conversion is implemented by electing to add the support for it using the Analysis Services Project Wizard. This adds MDX scripts to the resulting OLAP Cubes to handle conversion between the Accounting and Reporting currencies.
Date Dimensions (which are Role Playing dimensions) can be configured for a specific Date Range, Starting Month of the Year and Starting Day of the Week. Hierarchies can be included or excluded and custom Date Dimensions for specific purposes can be created and included.
Fiscal Date dimension is derived from the Ledger Calendar specified in the General Ledger.
Main Account Categories are used to group Main Accounts together and aggregate their values. These Main Account Categories are referenced directly by their IDs in Calculated Measures and KPI definitions in the Cubes.
Time Periods are MDX code snippets that are applied to Measure values in Business Overview webparts to provide time-relative functionality like This Period vs Last Period.
Perspectives in AX are used to model and define the metadata that is used to generate the OLAP Cubes and Shared Dimensions that become the Dynamics AX OLAP database
Table, View and Field properties allow you to control whether the BI Project Wizard generates Fact Tables and Measures or Dimensions and Attributes from the underlying database objects
The Deploy option allows you to deploy a Analysis Services project containing se;ected Cubes and Dimensions. During the process you can select which Partition(s) to deploy it for. This process adds Partition awareness to the resulting Data Source View (DSV) by introducing a WHERE clause that specifies the corresponding Partition Key value.
The Configure option is used propagagte changes to an Analysis Services project after you enale or disable a Microsoft Dynamics AX configuration key or make changes to Language settings.
The Update option is used to add or remove new Measures and Dimensions to an existing Analysis Services project or make changes to Calendar and Time Dimensions.
The Create option allows you to create a new, custom Analysis Services project by selecting only the Cubes and Dimensions to be included in the new OLAP database.
During these processes you can choose whether to include Language Label Translations and include Foregin Currency Conversion support.
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 includes role-specific home pages that are called Role Centers.
Role Centers provide an overview of information that pertains to a user’s job function in the business or organization.
This information includes transaction data, alerts, links, and common tasks that are associated with a user’s role in the company.
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 includes 44 role-specific home pages plus 4 template.
The Role Centers added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 are highlighted in red.
The pre-configured solution can be extended if required by an organization, we’ll discuss these options later in this presentation.
The integration of the Analysis Services Cubes and AX extends all the way to the presentation layer which is a webpart page hosted by a SharePoint enabled website called the Enterprise Portal
Users in AX are configured with a User Profile which determines which Role Center or landing page the User will see when logging into the AX Client or the Enterprise Portal
The Role Center page is the same webpart page rendered either in a Browser or the AX Client and uses Integrated Security to determine who the currently logged on user is
This tight integration enables the website to determine who the AX User is and derive their default Company, Currency and Localization settings
A Cue is a visual representation of the results of an AX query that allows the user to quickly see a summary amount or value and then optionally open a form in AX that displays the underlying records
Charts and Reports can be SSRS Reports formatted specifically for presentation in a Role Center, Chart components or Power View visualizations
The Business Overview webpart is a multi-purpose webpart that can be configured to show either Measures or KPI’s from the OLAP Cubes
When configured as a Business Overview the values are displayed as comparative measures often using Time-relative periods and can be grouped and filtered by related Dimensions in the underlying Cubes(s)
When configured as a KPI List the values are displayed using visualizations designed to represent the Status and Trend of a Value in relationship to a Goal
In both scenarios the configuration is very flexible and can be performed by a Business User with required permissions
Measures and KPI’s in a single Business Overview webpart can come from one or many different Cubes that the User has access to
Time Periods can be customized using the AX Client to provide additional comparisons
