September 4, 2016 at 10:30 pm
I've just started playing with SSAS Tabular 2016 after learning the basics of DAX. (I know enough to be dangerous, I think.)
It doesn't seem possible to "extend" the model in any way if you're not the developer - I can't add calculated columns or measures to any model that uses SSAS Tabular. Am I missing something or is this by design?
September 5, 2016 at 3:33 am
pietlinden (9/4/2016)
I've just started playing with SSAS Tabular 2016 after learning the basics of DAX. (I know enough to be dangerous, I think.)It doesn't seem possible to "extend" the model in any way if you're not the developer - I can't add calculated columns or measures to any model that uses SSAS Tabular. Am I missing something or is this by design?
If you're talking about connecting to the Tabular instance through an excel pivot table then the only thing you can do to extend it is add a named set. If you want to add new columns etc. then you can use the PowerPivot window in Excel and bring in the data that you need. Then you can add DAX calculations and query that model.
Other cube browsers (like Pyramid or Tableau) may allow you to do this, sorry I'm not 100% sure either way. There is of course Power BI Desktop which is a similar thing to using the PowerPivot window in that you can create your own calculations locally and then publish them elsewhere.
September 5, 2016 at 1:43 pm
Bummer. That's what I was afraid of.
What do you do if the model is missing a measure or two and maybe some useful calculated columns? Call the developer, because DAX is such a hassle to write?
September 5, 2016 at 2:28 pm
pietlinden (9/5/2016)
Bummer. That's what I was afraid of.What do you do if the model is missing a measure or two and maybe some useful calculated columns? Call the developer, because DAX is such a hassle to write?
Well you'd still be writing DAX no matter if you did have the flexibility to add your own calculations in a client.
Why not give it a go and if you have issues then come back here and ask 🙂
September 7, 2016 at 12:45 am
Will do. I guess I'm still a serious noob when it comes to DAX... just getting my head around the way it works is hard!!!
I was thinking I should just rebuild a solution I have in PowerBI in SSAS. (Kind of surprised there's no way to get from PowerBI to either Excel or SSAS Tabular... unless I'm missing something.)
I'll be back soon with questions, I'm sure.
September 7, 2016 at 1:15 am
pietlinden (9/7/2016)
(Kind of surprised there's no way to get from PowerBI to either Excel or SSAS Tabular... unless I'm missing something.)
There is.....what I mean is that you can use SSAS as a data source in Power BI Desktop and also (I think) PowerPivot models created in Excel and Excel itself. Also if you build something in Excel PowerPivot you can upscale it to be hosted on a server as a Tabular model. Again though, DAX.
September 7, 2016 at 1:09 pm
I think the one migration/upsizing path that is not available is from PowerBI Desktop to SSAS.... so of course, that's what I did. Just seems strange that you can do things in PBID that you cannot do in Excel (at least I couldn't)... like CALENDAR(), among others... so it looked like going from PowerBI Desktop to SSAS was a viable solution. Not so. =(
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