Getting Started with Tabular April 11, 2015

Phillip Labry  Sr. BI Engineer  IT development for over 25 years  Developer, DBA, Business Intelligence  Experience with Manufacturing, Telecom, Banking, Retail, Government, Insurance, Healthcare, Consulting, Energy Blog: Blog:

Skyline Technologies Established in 1992 Associate owned Offices in Appleton, Green Bay, and Milwaukee Over 135+ Technology Professionals —50+ Microsoft Certified Professionals —7 Project Management Professionals (PMP) —20+ Certified Scrum Masters (CSM) —2 Certified Scrum Professionals (CSP) Microsoft Gold Certified Partner - most certified in state —Very well connected with Microsoft —3 Microsoft MVP’s —5 Virtual Technology Specialists (VTSP) —2 Partner Advisory Council members Proven Methodologies ―Agile ―PMBOK ―BABOK ―Testing

CLIENT SUCCESS

BASIC TERMS MeasureNumeric value that can be aggregated (Sales Amount) FactCollection of fields mainly consisting of Measures DimensionTable of values that describes a fact (people, places, things) Star SchemaDimension tables radiating out from a related fact table Snowflake SchemaDimensions related to other dimensions AggregateA mathematical summarization of measures AttributeA property that describes a field

Analysis Services  Released in Version 7 as OLAP Services  Row based storage  Implements Multi Dimensional Expressions(MDX)  Similar enough to SQL to be Very Confusing  Performance gains through preprocessing of aggregations  Data Mining added in 2005

Analysis Services Tabular  Released in 2012  Column based storage(Xvelocity Engine)  Performance via in memory storage and compression  Implements Data Analysis Expressions(DAX)  Not like SQL at all  Consumes data from many sources

DATA SOURCES SQL ServerSQL AzureAPS(PDW)MS Access ExcelAnalysis ServicesSSRS reports Azure Data Marketplace

DATA SOURCES SQL ServerSQL AzureAPS(PDW)MS Access ExcelAnalysis ServicesSSRS reportsText files OracleTeradataSybaseDB2 InformixAzure Data Marketplace OLEDB/ODBCOdata feeds

BI SEMANTIC MODEL: VISION Third-party applications Reporting Services Excel PowerPivot DatabasesLOB ApplicationsFilesOData FeedsCloud Services SharePoint Insights Power View

FOR DEVELOPMENT  Install From SQL 2014 Developer Edition  Must Choose Tabular Server  Only Tabular Or OLAP Per Instance  Use local machine for workspace if you can  DO NOT CHOOSE PRODUCTION SERVER FOR WORKSPACE

UPDATES DON’T FORGET TO APPLY SERVICE PACK 2 FOR SQL SERVER 2012

DIMENSIONS  Wide and shallow  Describe facts  Can contain hierarchies  Can contain calculated columns

DEMO

HIERARCHIES  Predefine common hierarchies for the users  Hierarchies are defined from largest group to smallest  Year  Quarter  Month  Hide columns used for hierarchies where appropriate

DEMO

FACT TABLES  Deep and narrow  Mostly measures  Keys to dimensions  Natural repository for calculated measures

DEMO

TIPS FOR DEVELOPMENT  Clean table names on first import  Settle on column names before creating any calculated column or measures  Flatten out snowflakes where possible  Don’t create calculated columns for intermediate measures  Use views for source data  Use meaningful and verbose names  Use attribute properties and formatting

CURRENT TABULAR CHALLENGES  Many to many relationships  True role playing dimensions  Multiple language support  Complex or ragged hierarchies  Measure security  Cell level security