I recently wrote an article about how to implement a Process Add on a table in a Tabular model. This is an area where there is a lack of documentation by Microsoft, especially if you want to use a custom binding query for every Process Add command, which should be the common case for a Process Add scenario. Cathy Dumas wrote several blog posts about this argument and I tried to put everything together, showing the same example written in XMLA Script, AMO, and PowerShell. You can also use Integration Services, but considering you probably want to customize the binding query, chances are that you will opt for a more programmatic approach, maybe embedding an XMLA Script or an AMO Script in a standard Task in SSIS.

The next step for me will be studying how much “near real-time” a Tabular model can be by using this type of Process option. In fact, it should be possible to use a push model processing, like in a Multidimensional model, and my initial tests say that there is no “out of service” window when you process data in Tabular. So you can forget the lock issue you may have in a Multidimensional model in Analysis Services. But you need memory and it is hard today to say how much this architecture can scale in terms of concurrent users when you start processing data incrementally. Also, the quality of compression made by Vertipaq might suffer.

If you have any experience in this area, please contact me and share your knowledge! Otherwise, stay tuned, I’ll try to further study this topic, then blogging what I’ll found.