Writeback partition secuirty in SSAS - ssas

I have a writeback partition working pretty well in a cube. The users access it through Excel 2010. At the moment there are 3 measures in the cube. I'd like to only give users access to writeback to 2 of them while being able to read all 3. Is there a way to accomplish this? I'm very much an MDX novice if MDX is involved. Thanks in advance.

The failproof way to prevent those users from writing to your measure is by including those in a special Role with writeback access. In the tab "Cell Data", check the box "Enable read/write permissions", and in the field below "Allow reading and writing of cube content" you can set an expression to limit the write measures, such as:
(Measures.CurrentMember IS [Measures].[X] OR Measures.CurrentMember IS [Measures].[Y])
In the upper field, that enables read access, allow access to all three measures:
(
Measures.CurrentMember IS [Measures].[X] OR
Measures.CurrentMember IS [Measures].[Y] OR
Measures.CurrentMember IS [Measures].[Z]
)
They will have a weird message saying that the cell was blocked, but at least you'll prevent them from writing to your beloved measure.
Another approach would be: create a Calculated measure ([Measures].[ZZ]) based on the one you want to hide ([Measures].[Z]). SSAS won't let the user writeback on a calculated measure. Make sure you hide the original by marking it VISIBLE = 0.

#mmarie is correct...if the measures are all in the same partition, then you'll need to move the 2 for writeback into a separate measure group. You can do this by creating separate views in the relational DW or via named queries in the DSV. Since both measure groups will have the same dimensionality (because they are based on the same table) SSDT will give you a warning - just ignore it ;-)

Related

SSAS - No of Working Days as Named Calculation

I am new to SSAS. I have a requirement, I need to calculate no of working days between user selected date range (either in Excel or SSRS or PowerBI). I found the MDX query, I need assistance with create a named calculation with MDX expression.
Date Dimension (Filtered):
MDX:
WITH MEMBER Measures.WorkingDays AS
COUNT
(
exists( EXISTING {[Dim Date].[Date].[Date].members}
, [Dim Date].[Is Weekday].&[1] )
)
Select {Measures.WorkingDays} on 0 ,
[Dim Date].[Month].[Month] on 1
from [Project Cube]
where ([Dim Date].[Date].&[2018-01-01T00:00:00]:[Dim Date].[Date].&[2018-04-25T00:00:00])
I need to add this named column on Fact table as measurement. I am having trouble with the below items:
Creating named query with MDX expression mentioned.
Adding a [Number of Working Days] as measure in Fact table.
Please correct me, If I am doing it in wrong way. My requirement is I need a [NoOfWorkingDays] as measure in fact table, so that I can use SSAS aggregate to use it as input on other measure, such as ([utilization%] = ([ActualDaysWorked] / [NoofWorkingDays]).
Note that, I can do analysis with the given MDX, but I need to deploy it with precalculated values in cube, so that end user can directly use the cube.
Kindly let me know, if more details required, Thank you.
Welcome to SSAS and MDX. Now to the answer.
I need to add this named column on Fact table as measurement. I am
having trouble with the below items:
Creating named query with MDX expression mentioned. Adding a [Number
of Working Days] as measure in Fact table.
You dont need to add it to the Fact table at all. Open your SSAS project, in your object explorer double click your cube. Now on the top left hand you will see a CALCULATIONS tab. In the CALCULATION tab, Click new calculated member, the icon has a calculator on it.
Please correct me, If I am doing it in wrong way. My requirement is I
need a [NoOfWorkingDays] as measure in fact table, so that I can use
SSAS aggregate to use it as input on other measure, such as
([utilization%] = ([ActualDaysWorked] / [NoofWorkingDays]).
If I remember correctly, the calculated members will not be added into the Aggregations, however the underlying measures would be. Secondly if you are wondering that you can use your calculated Measure in another calculated measure. The answer is yes you can use it in another calculated measure. So this is totally possible
> ([utilization%] = ([ActualDaysWorked] / [NoofWorkingDays])
where [utilization%] and [NoofWorkingDays] are calculated measures.

Showing measure values as "not applicable" which are not related to dimensions

I have a requirement where report should show measures as "not applicable" if one selects a attribute which is not linked to that measure Group.
1) unrelateddimesnion= 'false' is not solving my problem because i have few default members.
2) I could able to show measure value as "not applicable " by Writing this MDX statement
([Customer].[customer name].[customer name], [measures].[sales forecast]) = 'not applicable'
but with this i have to repeat the same line for each and every attribute present in the dimension ( and also for each and every measure present in the measure Group)
can someone help me Writing the MDX for entire dimension instead for individual attribute. Thanks in advance.
Kind Regards
Mah
Bad news! An MDX script on your cube can't reference such a sub-cube in a simple way. You may have seen the LEAVES(dimension) function for a scope statement but that won't work when one attribute in a dimension has the [All] level and another has a selection. (That is to say the function returns the leaves of the dimension's key attribute). What you can do is use nested scope statements with the outer one filtering down to the list of measures you want to affect. That will at least save you typing a formula num_attributes * num_measures times. The scope statement may even accept the MEASUREGROUPMEASURES function. (When I last used that it only returned visible measures but that's probably what you want anyway.)
It may be easier to link measure group and dimension and let your data sit on the UNKNOWN member. (Or an explicit dummy member.) Then filters against or slices to real customer hierarchy values will exclude your [Sales Forecast] rows and show it as null. That's not something I've done and it'll have ramifications for error processing and you'll have to allow users sight of the unknown or dummy member. So recommend you play with the idea before you rely on it.
I hope this helps some.

SSAS hide measure for certain dimension

How to hide measure or a scope if user choose certain dimension or go to certain dimension hierarchy level?
Thanks.
Try something like this in your MDX script:
FREEZE([Measures].[My Measure], [Product].[Subcategory].[All]);
([Measures].[My Measure], [Product].[Product].Members, [Product].[Subcategory].[Subcategory].Members) = null;
Freeze ensures the next statement won't null out the category level totals. The next statement bulls out that measure for the whole product dimension up to the subcategory totals but not above.
Note this is fine for nulling out meaningless numbers but isn't a security feature. A savvy user could do a drillthrough command to get the product level numbers. Or a savvy user could connect in a special way and clear the whole MDX script for his session so he sees the detailed product data.
For a more secure approach:
If you can null out product data for all measures then setup role based security. In dimension data security only grant access to member Subcategory.All only but uncheck visual totals on the advanced tab so that the subcategory grand total is the real total.
Or setup a second slimmed down Product dimension that only has the top levels not the detailed product levels. Then only tie that dimension to this measure group.
Or create a second measure group that does a group by in SQL and joins to the Product dimension only at the Category level. Thus there is no detailed data only rollups. Then with security control whether a used sees the detailed measures or the summary measures.
On measure properties you can set set visible property to false for the measure you want to hide. Another option is to use perspective and choose again what you want to hide or not.

Managing PerformancePoint Filters With Slowly Changing Dimensions

Just a bit of background info:
I have dimension table which uses SCD2 to track user changes in our company (team changes, job title changes etc) See example below:
I've built an Analysis Services Cube and created all the necessary hierarchy's for the dimensions and it works well when navigating and drilling down through the fact table.
The problem I have is with the filters on the PerformancePoint dashboard. As I'm using the User Dimension table with it's multiple instances of users it's showing duplicates up in the list. I can understand why as the surrogate ID is being referenced on the Dimension. But if I choose the first instance of the A-team I will see all their sales for a particular period and if I choose the second instance I will see all their sales for a different period.
What is the best way to handle this type of behavior? Ideally I'd like to see a distinct list of teams in alphabetical order and when I choose the team name it shows all of their data over time.
I've considered using MDX query filters but I'd like to see if there's anything I haven't thought about.
I realise this isn't an easy and quick question but any help would be appreciated!
The answer was simple after having a trawl through my User Dimension table on the Cube.
Under my user dimension I added 2 duplicate attributes to my attributes list ("Team Filter" is a copy of "Team", "User Filter" a copy of "User Name") these will be used only for filtering the dashboard.
Under the attribute properties for each duplicate I then set AttributeHierarchyOptimizedState to "Not Optimized", I also set their AttributeHierarchyVisible to false as I'd shown the two duplicate attributes in the hierarchy window in the middle.
Deploy your Cube to the server and go in to PerformancePoint. Create a new MDX Filter (this image shows the finished filter)
This is the code I used, it only shows dimension members which have a fact against them (reduces the list a considerable amount) and by using allmembers at the dimension it also gives me the option to show "All" at the top of the list.
Deploy the new filters and now you can see the distinct list of users and teams, works perfectly and selects every instance (regardless of the SCD2 row)

Access system tables in calculation

Is there a way to access system tables in a SSAS cube calcuation?
For example the following query can be executed on a SSAS cube to return a last processed date:
SELECT LAST_DATA_UPDATE FROM $System.MDSCHEMA_CUBES WHERE CUBE_NAME = 'Cube'
How would one access this information in a calculation?
Background: We were using ASSP before (a third party sproc) to get the last cube processed date. Recently, this sproc threw an exception on one of our cubes and caused SSAS to go down. Using the above line of MDX did not have this behavior. I would rather not have our cube depend on third party code so I am looking for a way to access LAST_DATA_UPDATE in a calc for a specific cube name.
I usually include a detached Dimension in my cubes e.g. ".Cube Information" which includes attributes like this. Other useful attributes could expose the currency of the data e.g. when did the last underlying ETL process complete, or the release/build of your cube.
I feed this "Cube Information" dimension from a SQL view which returns a single row with whatever data is needed - you could use your SELECT statement. It also needs to return a Key column with a fixed value e.g. 1.
By "detached" I mean the "Cube Information" dimension has no entries in the Cube Dimension Relationship tab.
In the cube Calculation script, I assign the DEFAULT_MEMBER property for that dimension to the fixed Key value from the SSAS view.
Any client tool can then access those Dimension attributes.