If you use SSAS Tabular, this is a very important news! Microsoft released a very important update for Analysis Services 2012 that provides performance improvements to pivot tables connected to an Analysis Services Tabular model: it is SQL Server 2012  Read more

You cannot create functions in DAX, and this is a limitation to certain abstractions you might want to implement for complex models. I used a pattern that allows you to "pass an parameter" to a DAX measure, simulating the behavior of a function at least  Read more

Thanks to Darren Gosbell we have DAX Studio 2.2. In this new release: Tracing (query plans and server timings) available for Power Pivot Basic implementation of Intellisense Connect to Multidimensional SSAS servers Support for multiple Power BI Desginer  Read more

The 2015 is a special year for Italy, because the country hosts Expo 2015, which is the current Universal Exposition. For this reason, the Italian PASS chapter promotes a special edition of SQL Saturday, a free training event for SQL Server professionals.  Read more

The last update of Power BI Designer allows you to create measures (not calculated columns yet). Download the new version of Power BI Designer and you will see the New Measure button. The editor is much better than anything you have seen in Excel 2010/2013,  Read more

The last update of Power Query finally supports Analysis Services Multidimensional and Tabular. I waited this version for a very long time, but now it's finally here! Chris Webb already wrote an interesting blog post with several useful link and informations.  Read more

Today at TechEd Europe 2014 Miguel Llopis made the first public show of Power Query support for Analysis Services. This is still not available, but it should be released soon (hopefully it will be our Christmas gift!). Here is a list of features shown:  Read more

SQL Server Analysis Services is a product that does not have its own product code, being sold as part of SQL Server. I think that also Microsoft does not know (and cannot know) the exact number of users. For this reason, it’s also more difficult to analyze  Read more

If you work with MDX, using MDX Studio is a must, but it has not been updated for years. But community is great and Ihor Bobak has been able to apply two fixes: performance counters work with named instance and there is a single version regardless of  Read more

It is available the new edition of the advanced OLAP book, now called “ Expert Cube Development with SSAS Multidimensional Models ”. The previous edition was titled “Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services” and the biggest  Read more