Writing Parametrized MDX for Reporting Services

Writing MDX inside of Reporting Services has been the nemesis for many report writers for far too long. If all you need is the Query Designer to create a drag and drop datasets then it's a piece of cake, but have you ever wondered what's going on with all the MDX that the Query Designer creates. Or how about how do the parameters work that it creates inside MDX. I've heard many report writers that use Analysis Services as a data source (including myself) say it is too difficult to create parameters and that's why they use the Query Designer. In reality, I think what the real problem is probably that the MDX results that the Query Designer provides make it look a lot more difficult than it really is. If you know some rudimentary MDX you can probably be writing your datasets yourself instead of using the Query Designer, which there's no problem with sticking with if it fits your needs. The goal of this article is to guide you through writing a basic MDX statement that can be used for a report query and more importantly show you how to parameterize it.