Category: MDX

Report-Builder Cube Data-Source

Had a tricky situation connecting Report Builder 3 to a cube. I was able to copy the connection string from withing SSDT but it still would not work.

I will use “Adventure Works” for illustration.

The solution was in the error message “Either the user, does not have access to the AdventureWorksDW2012 database, or the database does not exist.”

It turned out the database did not exist … as its SSMS Database-Engine name (“AdventureWorksDW2012”).

Connecting SSMS to Analysis Services however showed a different name “AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-EE”

Plugging this into my connection string (with Data Source Type being Analysis services, and Connect Using being Windows Integrated Security) worked eg:-

Provider=SQLNCLI11.1;
Data Source=(ServerName\InstanceName);
Integrated Security=SSPI;
Initial Catalog=AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-EE

Annoyingly (grrr!), I found just removing the Initial Catalog worked also (ah bah).

MDX Commandments

1) Always use fully qualified names.

selecting from ‘2016’ may work initially as the engine returns the first object it finds with this name (which just so happens to be in the calendar dimension).

However after a time there may be a customer-number ‘2016’ (in the customer dimension) that will be returned erroneously.

2) A Tuple marks the co-ordinates of the data to be returned.

A list of comma separated dimensions that intersect on the required data. EG:
(customer 123, date 10/07/2016, sales-item 456).

3) A Set is a list of related objects

EG:{date 10/07/2016, date 11/07/2016, date 12/07/2016}. A Set can be a list of Tuples.