The document introduces cube functions in Excel that allow users to fetch data from OLAP cubes. It describes 7 new CUBE functions, including CUBEMEMBER to fetch members, CUBEVALUE to fetch aggregated values, and CUBESET to fetch sets. It also discusses how formula auto-complete helps users navigate OLAP cube hierarchies and provides examples of converting PivotTables to formulas using CUBE functions.

1. Cube Functions - Introduction
Dashboard reports are often disjoint, (unlike Pivot Tables). The dashboard is organized in
small blocks of tables and charts, spread over the sheet.
PivotTables show the data as one adjacent rectangular block of data, with limited formatting
capabilities. A cube formula, on the other hand, can be placed everywhere in the Excel grid
using the rich Excel formatting.
Here a list with Excel cube formulas:
Formula Description
CUBEMEMBER(connection,member) Member defined by member_name
CUBEKPIMEMBE(connection,kpi_name,kpi_type) Member defined by kpi_name
CUBEVALUE(connection,member1,member2, …) Get cube value
CUBESET(connection,set_expression) Set defined by set_expression
CUBERANKEDMEMBER(connection,set_expression,rank) Returns the Nth item from a set
What are the new CUBE functions?
We have implemented seven new CUBE functions that can be used in
Excel formulas just like any other function in Excel. These functions
permit Excel to fetch data from SQL Server Analysis Services (2000 &
2005), including any member, set, aggregated value, property, or KPI
(Key Performance Indicator) from the OLAP cube. This data can then be
placed anywhere in the spreadsheet, intermingled with other local
calculations and/or within other formulas. Here are the seven new CUBE
functions:
CUBEMEMBER (connection, member_expression,[caption])
This function will fetch the member or tuple defined by the
member_expression. For example, (from the illustration above,) the
formula: =CUBEMEMBER ("Adventure Works", "[Sales Reason].[On
Promotion]") returns the member named “On Promotion” from the “Sales
Reason” dimension of the Adventure Works cube.
CUBEVALUE (connection, [member_expression_1],
[member_expression_2], …)
This function will fetch the aggregated value from the cube filtered by the
various member_expression arguments. For example, the formula:
=CUBEVALUE ("Adventure Works","[Measures].[Gross Profit]","[Product].
[Category].[Bikes]","[Date].[Fiscal Year].[FY 2004]") returns the value
$5,035,271.22 which is the aggregated amount in the Adventure Works
cube for Gross Profit for Bikes in Fiscal 2004.

2. CUBESET (connection, set_expression, [caption], [sort_order],
[sort_by])
This function will fetch the set that is defined by the set_expression
parameter. Optional parameters allow you to specify the ordering of the
set as well as the caption to be displayed in the Excel cell that contains
this formula. (Note that the set itself won’t have a display value.) For
example, the formula: =CUBESET ("Adventure Works","[Customer].
[Customer Geography].[All Customers].children","Countries") returns the
set of countries in the Customer Geography hierarchy and shows
“Countries” as the cell’s display value.
CUBESETCOUNT (set)
This function returns the number of items in a set. Typically the argument
to this
function will be a CUBESET function or a reference to a CUBESET function.
CUBERANKEDMEMBER (connection, set_expression, rank,
[caption])
This function returns the Nth item from a set. This can be very useful
when building a Top N (or Bottom N) report in Excel.
CUBEMEMBERPROPERTY (connection, member_expression,
property)
This function returns a property of a member in the OLAP cube.
CUBEKPIMEMBER (connection, kpi_name, kpi_property, [caption])
This function returns a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) from the OLAP
cube.
Samples
Basic Reports
Report Filters
Formula Auto-Complete for CUBE function arguments
Formula AutoComplete is a feature that provides a list of values from
which to choose as you write formulas. In most Formula AutoComplete
scenarios, Excel knows the list of values (formulas, named ranges, table
names) that it should display because those values are part of the Excel
application. For example, when you start typing a function name, Excel
can give you a list of all the other functions that start with the same
character(s), as is shown in this screenshot.

3. (Click to enlarge)
In this case, Excel already knows what all the possible function names are
that begin with “s”, so it can easily display a list of function names that
begin with the specified character(s). Ditto named ranges, UDFs, table
names, etc.
For many arguments to the new CUBE functions, however, we have a
different scenario. Excel does not inherently know about the multi-
dimensional database (OLAP cube) from which data is being fetched. In
order to provide an auto-complete dropdown, it is necessary for Excel to
query the multi-dimensional database or OLAP cube to find out what the
set of valid items will be. Here’s an illustration of how this works. In this
example, I have already created a connection named “Adventure Works”
to the Adventure Works database on SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.
I will start by entering a CUBEMEMBER function that uses the Adventure
Works connection, and when I get to the second argument, (which calls
for a member_expression,) I will only enter the opening quotation marks
that tell Excel I am planning to enter a string.
(Click to enlarge)
The list of possible values that appear in the dropdown did not come
directly from Excel. How’d that work? Excel issued a query to the
Adventure Works OLAP cube and displays a list of dimension names from
that cube. Let’s say that I choose the Dimension named “Customer” and
then enter a period (which is used as a separator by the MDX language).

4. (Click to enlarge)
I see that there are several hierarchies in the Customer dimension. Using
the arrow and tab keys, I will select the “Customer Geography” hierarchy
and enter another period.
(Click to enlarge)
The auto-complete drop down shows me that there is a single member at
the top of the Customer Geography hierarchy, and that item is “All
Customers”. By choosing this item and entering another period, I will see
an auto-complete drop down of the children of “All Customers” (which are
the countries in which the customers are located).
(Click to enlarge)
At any point, I can finish the argument by entering the closing quotation
marks.
The key point that I want to make here is that the Formula AutoComplete
feature is providing a mechanism for users to navigate the hierarchies in
the multi-dimensional database. Even if you have no prior knowledge of
the multi-dimensional database to which you are connecting, Excel’s
Formula AutoComplete feature will show you the dimensions in the cube,
the hierarchies in each dimension, and the members (and their children
and grandchildren, etc.) that are contained in each hierarchy. Also, it can
be much faster to use auto-complete to enter CUBE functions into Excel
formulas because you only need to identify the item you want from a
drop-down list and then hit the Tab key, as opposed to typing the full MDX
name for each function parameter.

5. The name that you get for a member using Excel’s auto-complete will be a
fully qualified name because you make a selection at each level of the
hierarchy. It is not the only name that could be used, nor is it the special
“member unique name” for a member in the cube. When you know that a
shorter MDX expression will resolve to the same member, you are free to
enter the shorter expression. It’s just that Excel will help you to navigate
the namespace of your database when you’re not already familiar with
that data.
The list of items that is displayed in each case is the list of the first fifty
(50) items which match the characters that have been entered so far. As
you enter more characters, the auto-complete drop down list is
automatically updated.
Deconstructing the PivotTable
Actually, before I talk about data connections, I want to cover one other
way that users can author OLAP formulas ... users can create a PivotTable
bound to an OLAP cube and then use the Field List to quickly add all the
fields that they care about to thier PivotTable. Then, with a single
command, they can convert that PivotTable to a set of formulas, where
each formula uses one of the new CUBE functions. Fast and easy.
Once the Pivot Table has been converted to formulas, users can insert
rows and columns, add their own calcs, and modify their work in all sorts
of ways, using the converted PivotTable as a convenient starting point.
Note that conversion only works in one direction. While you can convert a
PivotTable to Formulas, you cannot convert a set of formulas to a
PivotTable.
Imagine a report that shows several thousand members of a dimension,
each member on one row of the report. (As an example, this might be a
report that has data for each of several thousand products, or for each of
several thousand customers.) Instead of authoring thousands of CUBE
functions, it can be much easier and faster to create a PivotTable that
contains the data you want in the report. By bringing a single field into
the report (such as Product or Customer) many thousands of values can
also appear in that report.
The command to “Convert to Formulas”, can be found on “Options” Tab
under “PivotTable Tools”. It is located under the command labeled “OLAP
tools” as illustrated in the screenshot below (these are beta 1 visuals –
not final design).

6. (Click to enlarge)
For a PivotTable that uses a ReportFilter, There are two options when this
command is invoked. By default, the row labels, column labels and data
area of a PivotTable will be converted to Excel formulas that use CUBE
functions. If there was a ReportFilter, that filter will remain as it was and
the CUBE functions will refer to it. This permits the filter to be changed
and all the formula values will be adjusted accordingly. The other option
is to convert the ReportFilter too, so that nothing of the original PivotTable
remains.
Here’s the dialog that comes up to give you this choice:
To illustrate this capability, here is a PivotTable report where the Report
Filter has not been converted along with the rest of the report. In this
example, users may still dropdown the filter in cell B1 and change its
value. When this cell is changed, the rest of the numbers will change with
it.
(Click to enlarge)

7. Here is the same report, but in this case, everything was converted,
including the ReportFilter. There is no longer a dropdown in cell B1, but if
the CUBEMEMBER function in that cell were changed, the rest of the
report would reflect that change.
(Click to enlarge)
That wraps up OLAP formulas. With this series of blog postings, I hope
that I’ve illustrated how Excel 12 has added an important new feature that
make it an incredibly powerful tool for analysis of OLAP data. With
improved PivotTables, new CUBE functions and the ability to convert from
a PivotTable to formulas, there are lots of ways to build sophisticated
reports based on the analytic data that is more and more commonly
stored in multi-dimensional databases such as SQL Server 2005 Analysis
Services.
MDX stands for Multi Dimensional Expressions. This is a Microsoft proprietary
language used to define and manipulate multidimensional cubes.
Typical MDX query has a SELECT clause, a FROM clause, and WHERE clause
(filter).
MDX expressions are used to extract required portions of data from a cube for
analysis.
MDX also supplies a robust set of functions for the manipulation of retrieved
data as well as the ability to extend MDX with user-defined functions.
Hierarchical Navigation - Selecting Relative Members (CubeMember)
PREVMEMBER, NEXTMEMBER and PARENT
PARALLELPERIOD, CLOSINGPERIOD, OPENINGPERIOD
Hierarchical Navigation - Selecting Members and Levels (CubeSet)
Dimension and Levels
MEMBERS
CHILDREN
DESCENDANTS

8. Aggregating Values (CubeSet)
Simple Sums
PERIODSTODATE, YTD, MTD, QTD and WTD
LASTPERIODS
Filtering and Sorting (CubeSet)
Value, Alphanumeric and Natural Sorting
FILTER
Ranking (CubeSet)
TOPCOUNT, TOPSUM and TOPPERCENT
Implementing Interactivity with Combo Boxes
Charting with Cube Formulas