Adding measures

Measures are crucial when building Analysis Services cubes. They are quantifiable values usually tied to a column in a fact table. The most common method of defining measures is to use aggregate functions such as sum, min, max, distinct count, and count on a numeric column. A measure can also be defined using an expression that calculates values using an MDX statement—this is called calculated measures.

The fact table that has been used throughout this book called FactInternetSales contains several columns that describe different facts about an individual transaction. So far in this book you have worked with the Sales Amount measure that describes the sales amount for an individual order row. The FactInternetSales table also contains information about the order quantity, the price, the discount amount, and other measures that are included in the transaction. These columns are interesting when analyzing the sales information; all we need to do is to add them to our measure...