asymmetric sets similar to Excel 2010

Question

I am trying to make a so-called asymetric report. Meaning I have on the columns 2 dimensions, and I want to display, e.g.

Actual - 12 months and Budget - YearTotal

I can not find how to do this, and it might even be it is impossible to do this with MDX.

In Excel 2010, this is possible through so-called "named sets", which I think are "named tuples" (see http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2009/10/05/pivottable-named-sets-in-excel-2010.aspx).

• is an asymetric report like this possible in icCube?
• what are alternatives to obtain a similar result?

Thanks in advance,

Arthur

Answer 1

You can explicitly enumerate the columns in MDX. you do not have to use a cross product. Instead of

{ Accounts.Version.Actual, Accounts.Version.Budget }
*
(Date.Calendar.Year_2012 + Date.Calendar.Year_2012.Children)

(which would produce a "symmetric report"), you can use

{ 
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month1_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month2_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month3_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month4_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month5_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month6_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month7_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month8_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month9_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month10_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month11_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Actual, Date.Calendar.Month12_2012),
(Accounts.Version.Budget, Date.Calendar.Year_2012)
}

(or adapt the above column list as you like), or use any way to build the column axis set that you prefer like

{ Accounts.Version.Actual } * (Date.Calendar.Month1_2012 : date.Calendar.Month12_2012)
+
{ (Accounts.Version.Budget, Date.Calendar.Year_2012) }

as long as the dimensionality of the axis set stays consistent, i. e. all tuples of the set have the same number of members (two in this case), and in each position of the tuples of the set, there are only members of the same hierarchy (Accounts.Version in the first position, and Date.Calendar in the second here).

That is just with regard to MDX. Another question is which user interfaces expose which of the possibilities of MDX.

And finally: Named sets are named sets in MDX. At least Analysis Services does not have the concept of a named tuple. I think the Essbase MDX dialect has this.

Answer 2

Not sure to fully understand Excel but in MDX the standard way is using calculated members, most probably attached to an Utility Dimension.

On top, in icCube you can create category member that break any dimensionality constraint.