Creating the Analysis Services project in Visual Studio

Analysis Services databases are created in Visual Studio. In this section, we will create the project and connect to the database views we created previously. This will create a data model in Analysis Services that will serve as the basis for the rest of the work we'll do in this chapter. Let's get started:

1. Start by opening Visual Studio:

   Figure 4.1 – Creating a new project in Visual Studio

2. Choose Analysis Services Multidimensional and Data Mining Project and click Next:

   Figure 4.2 – Creating an SSAS multidimensional project

3. You now are ready to Configure your new project. You will be asked to fill in the following properties associated with your project:

   a) Project Name: WideWorldImportersMD

   b) Location: This will be the location where you want to store the project

   c) Solution Name: WideWorldImportersSSAS

   Naming your Visual Studio project and solution

   There are a couple of comments to be made...