Question about the new Microsoft Analysis Services Tabular Model.
Once the model is deployed and reports are created against it (e.g., in PowerView or Excel), what if you need to change the name of a column? As far as I can tell, there is no way to change the name of the column in the tabular model without breaking the attached reports that utilize that column.
In most OLAP tools, there is a "friendly name" or "caption" field that is separate from the actual source column. Sometimes this is the difference between the physical versus business layers in semantic modeling tools. Can you get this type of functionality out of the tabular model yet?
Thanks!
You can't change the name of the column without breaking the report. Buy you can have the give your tabular model column a different name than what's in the source data -- that's about as good as you're going to get.
No, the only other textual field a column can have is the description field and this field is purely for internal use and is unavailable in the power view or excel UI.
Related
I am building SSAS Tabular models, that I use in both Power BI and Excel
When pulling the models into Excel I get a somewhat strange behavior that I am not a fan of.
The model contains a number of fact, dimension and date tables, all of these contain a number of attributes.
When I initially connect to the model, it shows all tables expanded (see image below)
I then click the small cog and the "collapse all" button and all is good in my book
I can now get a great overview of my tables and only expand the one I need for the attribute I am looking for in my report.
Until the first time I add a fielt into my report, then everythin expands again.
Have any of you encountered this issue before?
I currently have an Excel file with a data entry form- a formatted sheet with vba to provide combo boxes, validate data types & form completeness, and then load the entered data to another sheet. I'd like to put this on Sharepoint for my team to use, but Sharepoint disables VBA. I'd prefer that they be able to enter data online rather than downloading the Excel file and re-uploading. Any advice on how to do this? It's preferred if I don't have to start from scratch, but suggestions on the easiest way to implement this are also welcome.
Specifically, this is a savings tracker for a procurement group. I'd like my team members to individually be able to enter negotiation data once complete: project name, supplier, baseline costs, negotiated value, effective date, etc. Some fields have a list of allowed inputs- most are short lists, but the supplier list is quite long. Their data would then be stored in a single table that I can build reports with in Power BI. My team is not particularly tech-savvy.
Thanks!
Building a BI system (dashboards) in Excel using imported tables (from excel files). We're using Excel 2016 query, data model, measures using DAX expressions, resulting in more pivot tables (some of which are reloaded into data model), etc.
My question: is there "best practice" on 1) naming these data elements and 2) documenting these bits to have a more complete system documentation.
Background: I'm the senior "hacker" munging these things together. But I need to move this towards being sustainable. I did some prototyping work and when I went back a week later it was challenging to reconstruct my thoughts and relationships...
I've seen folks refer to use of PowerBI flow diagrams to support documentation; but it seems to be more of the "icing on the cake" than the "cake" itself.
So what "bread and butter" documentation approaches have you, more experienced developers, taken to ensure that your systems are clearly documented so that others can pick up where you left off???
For naming, I follow the Kimball Group's advice for data warehouses/marts, e.g.
https://www.kimballgroup.com/2014/07/design-tip-168-whats-name/
I rename many/most Query steps to reference the column or table name, e.g. Added Custom => Added Customer Name, Append Queries => Append Customers. The idea is to be able to pick the right step first time when coming back for maintenance.
You can select all the Queries in the Query Editor window and copy their code, then paste it into Word etc as the starting point for your documentation. You can also screen-shot the Query Editor's Query Dependancies pop-up.
For the Power Pivot logic, try this solution:
https://powerpivotpro.com/2014/03/automatically-create-data-dictionary-for-your-power-pivot-model/
I'm having a lot of fun trying to solve this one.
THE PROBLEM: We have two database 'cubes'. One is a multidimensional (old legacy cube) and one is a tabular model (new). We are trying to phase out the old multidimensional cube.
Client is using new tabular cube model with PivotTable. What she is trying to do is drag in COUNTY (text value) into rows, select multiple county values, right click and group counties into custom groups (ie. NORTH and SOUTH). This works with the old multidimensional cube but is grayed out for the new tabular cube. So much for the new hotness.
FAILED SOLUTIONS:
Confirmed problem is present on both Excel 2013 and 2016
Checked for blank fields. There are no blank fields.
Tried with multiple fields and other tabular data cubes with same problem.
Changed formatting of cells to text.
Read every posting I can find on this topic on the internet.
If someone has a solution for this I would be so grateful.
That's correct. That grouping feature uses "session cubes" which aren't supported in Tabular. Session cubes are actually a deprecated feature for Multidimensional and were never supported for Tabular.
One workaround is to create an MDX calculated member following these instructions (see the What Are Calculated Members section) and use the formula:
Aggregate(
{
[County Dimension].[County].&[county 5456],
[County Dimension].[County].&[county 5457]
}
)
Coming from the corporate data warehousing solutions world I found Power Pivot to be surprisingly functional tool that could help to bring BI into small bussiness. In order to educate myself in this area I'm doing a small project for a friend who is a building contractor and asked me to help analyse his costs against different projects. The issue is that some data needs to be provided by user and here is where my narrow knowledge of Power Pivot is starting to show up.
My base data is coming from accounting system. I have access to company books via SQL Server connection, I can import Invoices, Clients, Suppliers, Accounts and all other entries. I made all
the connections and can present data in an easy way in a Pivot table which alone impressed my friend a lot. I was impressed myself how easy and straightforward it was compared to some reporting tools like Microstrategy or Business Objects which I use every day.
What is missing in the accounting system is Project information, say Client has 3 houses which my friend is working on, each of them should be treated as a separate project that we want to calculate profit on. Do do that I need some manual input such as assigning Project to Cost invoice add a category (Materials, Services) etc.
Initially I wanted to create a two lookup spreadsheets:
Projects where project name, valid from/to, etc. would be entered manually (or imported from CRM application in the future) and Client which would be selected from a dropdown list (ideally sourced directly from the power pivot Client table)
QUESTION 1: how to add a dropdown list of Clients coming from Power Pivot table?
Invoice relation table which would hold some data from power pivot Cost Invoice table (invoice number, supplier, date etc.) and then a dropdown list with projects (from the first spreadsheet) and cost type. Tricky part is that I would like invoice list to be refreshed automatically when new invoices are registered but I don't want to loose any data added manually against them!
QUESTION 2: how to design such spreadsheet to be populating new invoices automatically but maintaining data linked with it? I was thinking PivotTable with some data next to it but it seems like a very volatile solution, say invoices are sorted by invoice number (which is different system or each supplier) and a new one can show up in the middle of the table, then all projects that were manually added after would start pointing to the wrong invoices.
Last resort for me is to create an MS Access database for storing/updating lookups but then all the mess with creating ODBC connections etc. comes into play and in my opinion it's defeating the idea of neat PowerPivot Excel spreadsheet...
Any ideas are welcome!
in general you can design an excel table that holds manual input data and feed that table into PowerPivot (via linked table).
as for the drop down info based on database data i suggest using power query. this tool lets you connect to various sources, do some data wrangling and then output that data into excel. these outputs can then serve as data range for excel based drop downs.
take a look at Power Query e.g.here: https://support.office.com/en-in/article/Introduction-to-Microsoft-Power-Query-for-Excel-6e92e2f4-2079-4e1f-bad5-89f6269cd605 or here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACjRvxl_2w.