Hi,

In the Data access mode drop down box i select SQL Command, and paste the following MDX Query into the SQL command text box.

SELECT NON EMPTY { [Measures].[SaleAmount], [Measures].[SaleCount]} ON COLUMNS,

NON EMPTY { ([Customer].[Customer].[Customer].ALLMEMBERS

* [Date].[Year-Month].[Month].ALLMEMBERS

* [Date].[Year].[Year].ALLMEMBERS) }

DIMENSION PROPERTIES MEMBER_CAPTION, MEMBER_UNIQUE_NAME ON ROWS

FROM [CustomerAnalysis]

CELL PROPERTIES VALUE, BACK_COLOR, FORE_COLOR, FORMATTED_VALUE, FORMAT_STRING, FONT_NAME, FONT_SIZE, FONT_FLAGS

then when i clicked the Columns menu item, the program did NOT response. it was blocked.

I guessed that was because SSAS was parsing the mdx query.

BIDS finally issued an out-of-memory error.

in fact, if executed, the mdx query should return tens of millions of records. and i'm pretty sure that parsing a mdx query is essentially executing the query and then discarding the results.

it seems mdx query is not suitable for extracting large amount of data from a cube, am i right?

Andrew