Cube Perspectives
Overview
Cubes can be very complex for users to explore.
A single cube can represent the contents of a complete data warehouse, with multiple measure groups in a cube representing multiple fact tables, and multiple dimensions based on multiple dimension tables. Such a cube can be very complex and powerful, but daunting to users who may only need to interact with a small part of the cube in order to satisfy their business intelligence and reporting requirements.
You can use a perspective to reduce the perceived complexity of a cube. A perspective defines a viewable subset of a cube that provides focused, business-specific or application-specific viewpoints on the cube.
The perspective controls the visibility of objects that are contained by a cube. The following objects can be displayed or hidden in a perspective:
- Dimensions
- Attributes
- Hierarchies
- Measure groups
- Measures
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Actions
Perspectives are not meant to be used as a security mechanism, but as a tool for providing a better user experience in business intelligence applications. All security for a particular perspective is inherited from the underlying cube.
For example, perspectives cannot provide access to objects in a cube to which a user does not already have access. Security for the cube must be set before access to objects in the cube can be provided through a perspective.
Use Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence or Enterprise edition
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In the JDM perspectives can be created and maintained in the Perspectives dialogue by right-clicking on a cube and navigating to Advanced > Perspectives.
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You indicate by a checkmark if the individual object is visible in the perspective or not:
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When the user connects to the perspective, it is just like connecting to a cube:
Use SQL Server Standard edition
SSAS Cube Perspectives is a Microsoft SQL Server feature available in the Business Intelligence and Enterprise edition only. If you have Standard Edition of Microsoft SQL Server, you can still get the same functionality with the JDM Physical Cube Perspectives Feature.
You can use the execution queue in manual executions by selecting the option in the Deploy/Execute window:
Note: Physical Cube Perspectives is a premium feature that can be licensed for the Jet Data Manager but is not included with the standard package.