Adding perspectives to simplify cube browsing

As you add more and more measures, measure groups, and dimensions, it gets more and more complex. To a casual user, it may get too complex to browse. However, to an advanced analyst, there is a benefit of having as much as possible in one single cube. To solve this conflict, Analysis Services has a concept called perspective. You can think of perspectives as a view over your cube.

To create a perspective, perform the following steps:

1. Open up the Adventure Works DW2012.cube cube from the Solution Explorer.

2. Select the Perspectives tab.

3. Click on the New Perspective button.

4. Change the value of Perspective Name to Simple Perspective.

5. Select the following objects to be included in the perspective:

   • Fact Internet Sales

   • Sales Amount

   • Order Date

   • Product

   • Internet Sales KPI

   • All Products Except Bikes

   • Top 10 Products by Reseller Sales

   • Margin

   • Ratio to parent product

   • Bikes and Clothing

   • Year to Date

   • Twelve Month Moving Average

   • Year Over Year Growth %

6. Deploy...