Understanding BI Through the Sample

Now that your pivot table is set up, what exactly are you trying to understand by working with it? How is a pivot table that gets its data from a SSAS cube different from any other Excel pivot table? Here is a list of some of the most important BI (or OLAP) concepts:

  • BI is comprehensive and flexible. A single, correctly designed cube can actually contain all of an organization's data, and importantly, this cube will present that data to end users consistently. To better understand this concept, you should try working with the AdventureWorks sample cube as displayed using the Excel pivot table to see that multiple types of measures (both Internet and Retail Sales) have been combined into one structure. Most, ...

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