Creating a SSAS Rowset Action

In the last post, I showed you how to install an external assembly for Analysis Services to query a relational data set, whether in SQL Server or any other database like DB2. This enables you to close the loop as a user is analyzing the data to see live real-time data. Now that you have that installed, let’s create an action to open the recordset with a right-click action in Excel or most cube browsers.

To do this example, I’ll be using the AdventureWorks cube, which you can download here: http://msftasprodsamples.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=18652 and the assembly from my last post.

In this example, you’ll see how to navigate from the AdventureWorks cube to the AdventureWorksDW relational database, which will give the user more relational results back from the warehouse. Let’s start by adding a new action to the sample actions already in AdventureWorks as shown in the below image. Name the action whatever you wish and set the Target Type to Cells. You can also set it to an attribute or hierarchy. This option is really based on what you want the user to be able to right-click on to see your action. By setting the option to Cells, a user my right-click on a measure.