Implementing metadata-driven KPIs
Metadata-driven calculations can be used for KPIs too. In SSAS, KPIs are like measures, except that each consists of four basic calculations: Value, Goal, Status, and Trend.
A common way to implement them is to define the name for a KPI and then those four calculations. If we go that way, we can have funny icons for Trend and Status calculations: traffic light, arrows, symbols, and so on.The other advantage of implementing KPIs using the built-in functionality of the cube is that we can combine them in a parent-child structure, which is a nice feature.
Of course, there is always the option to use normal calculated measures, four of them. In our case, that means to define three additional measures (since we already have the Value measure) and use them in reports. The advantage of that approach is that we can use properties that measures have, that is, background color and font color. Additionally, we can have more than three additional measures,...
