Retrieving Cell Properties
The point of this post is to discuss how to retrieve cell properties. Specifically, I want to call attention to the ReturnCellProperties setting on an Analysis Services connection and command. I will also talk about how you can use cell properties in Reporting Services reports.
It must be said that Teo Lachev beat me on publishing this tip. I had already drafted most of this post and had a couple of extra things to say on the topic, so I’m publishing it anyway.
In an MDX query, you’ve got dimension properties and cell properties. Dimension properties are intrinsic member properties such as MEMBER_CAPTION in addition to member properties you define in your dimension (such as the Customer attribute having a member property called Email). Cell properties are properties such as VALUE, FORMATTED_VALUE, and FORMAT_STRING which are simply extra information about a cell.
In most cubes, an effort has been made to properly set the FORMAT_STRING for all measures so that percents are formatted as percents and currency is formatted as currency. (Sometimes, the calc script even customizes the FORMAT_STRING for particular slices of the cube.) Therefore, it’s important to know how to retrieve the FORMATTED_VALUE cell property so that you can fully leverage all the cube provides you.