Testing/Troubleshooting Analysis Service Cube Security from SQL Server Management Studio

    

 
Analysis Service Security model is role based and relies on Windows authentication. This could pose a challenge for development and support teams to test/troubleshoot role permissions because of sensitivities around windows password. Thankfully Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) provides a feature to test/troubleshoot role permissions and the best thing is – you don’t need to know the password of the windows account you are testing.   

Using Page Viewer Web Part to Display Reporting Services Reports in SharePoint

Page Viewer is an out-of-box SharePoint web part that functions as a placeholder for web pages, folders and files that reside usually outside the SharePoint environment. One such use of Page Viewer is to display a Reporting Service report which is not integrated with SharePoint. This means with a little bit on tinkering Page Viewer can be effectively converted into a Report Viewer. 

Avoid Commas in FBA Roles and Members

When implementing Form Based Authentication (FBA) for SharePoint sites, ensure that your role members and role names do not have commas in them. A comma in any role member attribute or in role name, throws “Error: Access Denied” exception.

Offline OLAP – Working with Disconnected Analysis Service Cube

Microsoft introduced a cool feature in Excel 2007 called Offline OLAP that enables you to work with an Analysis Services Cube in disconnected mode. The Offline OLAP feature basically snapshots a version of the cube into a local cube file which can be used by Pivot Tables.

Getting rid of error message “You do not have permissions to open this file on Excel Services. Make sure that the file is in an Excel Services trusted location and that you have access to the file” in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)

Have you encountered this error message when opening an Excel Service Report in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)?

You do not have permissions to open this file on Excel Services. Make sure that the file is in an Excel Services trusted location and that you have access to the file. 

Deploying Report Actions in Analysis Services

This post is an extension to a popular post Reporting Action in Analysis Services on this blog . In this post, I explain the steps to deploy a report action using Analysis Services Deployment Wizard. By using the Analysis Service Deployment Wizard, Report Actions can be deployed effortlessly without hard coding the report URLS in your Analysis Services project.

Re-sizing Web Zone in SharePoint Dashboards

A SharePoint Dashboard is a web page made up of web parts. Web Parts exist within containers called Web Zone. In SharePoint, while the properties of the web part are exposed to the Dashboard Designer, the web zone is virtually untouchable. Often Dashboard Designers find it annoying to discover that their web part is either too big (leaving ugly scroll bars) or too small (leaving empty space) for the web zone and they are not able to modify the dimensions of the web zone.

How to Create Raw File for Use as SSIS Data Source?

The use of raw files as SSIS data source is highly recommended for huge volume of data due to its superior read/write performance. Raw files store data in a very basic format that requires almost zero translation and parsing. This enables faster data reads/writes when compared to Flat Files and even faster than Database tables.

CodePlex Projects

 Projects

I’m the coordinator on these CodePlex projects.

• SSIS Credit Card Number Validator 05 (CCNV05)

How to Automate Analysis Services Database Backup?

 

Analysis Service Database can be backed up from SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). This process is pretty much UI based. In this post, I explain two different techniques to automate the backup of an Analysis Service Database.

High Speed Data Transformation Using Raw Files

This post explains a SSIS technique that transforms 20M records in less than 10 minutes by using Raw Files.

Pages: 1 2 3

Comparison of KPI Types in SharePoint Server 2007

SharePoint Server 2007 offers five different methods to create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 

1. Using data from published Microsoft Excel 2007 spreadsheet.
2. Using KPIs defined in SQL Analysis Service Cube.
3. Using dashboard created in PerformancePoint 2007.
4. Using data from SharePoint list.
5. Using manual data entry.

This post compares the relative merits of methods 1-3 and suggests scenarios where a particular method is suitable over others.

Analysis Services Cube Concepts – Made Simple

This post defines the basic terminology of Analysis Services Cube from an Information Consumer/Analyst perspective.

IgnoreUnrelatedDimensions

IgnoreUnrelatedDimensions is a property of Measure Groups. By default its value is TRUE. So what does that mean?

How to Clone an Excel PivotTable?

Ever came across a situation where you have to compare PivotTable data from same data source but from different environments, for e.g. to compare data between Test and Production environment?  In this post I’ll explain a nifty trick that helps to clone an existing Excel PivotTable and change its data source without having to create the clone PivotTable from scratch.

Custom SSIS Data Flow Component – Credit Card Number Validator

 Custom Data Flow Component – Credit Card Number Validator

 

SQL Services Integration Services (SSIS) provides a wide range of out-of-box components to perform almost any ETL task. In addition, the object model of Integration Services allows you to create re-usable custom components.  Different types of custom objects can be developed, including:

• Custom tasks.
• Custom connection managers.   Connect to external data sources that are not currently supported.
• Custom log providers.    Log package events in formats that are not currently supported.
• Custom enumerators.   Support iteration over a set of objects or values formats that are not currently supported.
• Custom Data Flow Components.   Can be configured as sources, transformations, or destinations.

In this post, step-by-step instruction is provided to create a Custom SSIS Data Flow Component called Credit Card Number Validator. This component validates Credit Card Numbers using Luhn Mod 10 Algorithm.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Reporting Action in Analysis Services

Analysis Services allows cube browsers like Excel to fire events which are handled by the Actions defined in the cube. In this blog post, I will explain a specific type of cube action called Reporting Action.  Reporting Action enables information consumers to fire a SQL Server Report when a specific condition is met while browsing the cube.

AMO Wrappers for Securing Analysis Service Cube

Analysis Management Objects (AMO) allows you to programmatically interact with the object model of Analysis Services. The AMO layer interacts with Analysis Services by issuing XMLA commands. In this post I will explain the steps to automate the process of securing an Analysis Service Cube by building wrappers around AMO objects.

Pages: 1 2 3 4