Dec mtng of St Louis MS BI Group

Erika Bakse (twitter | blog) gave a good presentation. I took some random notes:

Tuples: Location, Location, Location

e.g., Four dimensions Workbook, sheet, column, row
'[Bikes.xlsx]'Sales 2008'!$B$2

two dimensional grid
Mountain-200 Black, 1/1/2008 bucket has a value of $66,xxx

adding dimensions to your tuple makes your buckets smaller
removing dimensions has the opposite effect

Basic Set Theory
Union, Intersect, Difference, Transform, Project

domain and range of a function

Identities ... cf. DeMorgan's laws

Advanced Set Functions in MDX: Generate
acts like mathematical function f:A->B
transforms elements of A into elements of B
takes each product member from the first set, finds its parent member, then unions all the parents together


Advanced Set Functions in MDX: Extract
removes dimensions, which makes buckets bigger
acts like mathematical projection
f:(X x Y) -> X

first set take sthe cross join of Bikes & Countries and returns those tuples that have a nonempty sales amount
extract function returns just the country members - eliminates the [Product].[Category].[Bikes] member from all the tuples

MDX Essentials by William Pearson

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Clayton Groom (twitter | skydrive) gave a great presentation and demo as well.

Did a lot of demos with Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (with Adventure Works cube).

Showed Visual Studio 2008 for building SSRS report that utilizes MDX

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