Vidas Matelis Analysis Services Blog

I posted this in SSAS 2008 forum, but decided also to post it here.

I did some testing with Analysis Services 2008 June CTP and found following:

• No problems restoring databases that were archived in SSAS 2005.
• I like new dimension wizard and can see myself using it more, as I have more control on how attributes are created.
• June CTP can be used to test how my database is holding to “best design practices”, as I can see all the warnings after database is restored.
• Adventure works database that is shipped with Katmai June CTP has a lot of warnings. I know that this is just a warning and not error, but when I open Adventure Works DW cube, I keep getting distracted by all these blue lines in almost every dimension.

• I could not find how to disable warning for a single case – example just for a single dimension. Can I do that? If so, I need an option to select any object and see what warnings are disabled and ability to re-enable them. Just then I’ll start to turning warnings off. But now I noticed that I have so many warnings that I am starting to ignore them – not good.
• When attribute/cube has a warning, it shows up for for a few seconds. Somehow would be nice to see option saving warning into clipboard. I had 16 warning on my cube, cannot read them in 2-3 seconds that warning description is visible
• When creating new dimension using wizard “Generate a non-time table in the data source” using any (I believe, I tried Customer, Department) template, even dimension name is specified, actual name assigned by wizard is “Dimension”
• Dimensions generated from template has a lot of warnings and attribute relationship is not properly defined (example on everything default “Customer” dimension). I would expect that template would not have such problems.
• When creating new dimension using wizard option “Generate a non-time table in the data source” very last dialog box has an option “Generate Schema now”. This check-box not very visible and if you do not select it, dimensions do not have tables created for them. If you select, all dimensions created in previous steps are included in the generation. This is not very intuitive.
• Some warnings are very confusing. Example “Set the dimension type to match the ‘Account’ or ‘Time’ attribute types” or “Set the dimension type to match the attribute type.”. As these warnings appear quite too often, I started to ignore them, so I’ll miss cases when they are really warning me.

Vidas Matelis