Bill Pearson


Stairway to MDX

Stairway to MDX - Level 2: The Ordinal Function

Business Intelligence Architect Bill Pearson introduces the MDX Ordinal Function, as a means for generating lists and for conditionally presenting calculations. He also demonstrates the use of the function in creating datasets to support report parameter picklists.

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2019-03-26 (first published: )

19,894 reads

Stairway to MDX

Stairway to MDX - Level 3: The Order() Function

The Order() function provides the 'hierarchized' sorts you need for reports and applications using MDX. In this Step, Business Intelligence Architect Bill Pearson explores using the versatile Order() function for providing dataset sorts that respect dimensional hierarchies.

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2019-03-26 (first published: )

12,988 reads

Stairway to MDX

Stairway to MDX - Level 5: Members, and an Introduction to the MDX Members Functions

Bill explains what is meant by a 'Member' and 'Member function' in MDX. A member is an item in a dimension that include the 'measures' which are the values of the attributes that belong to a dimension. 'Measures' are themselves members of a dimension called the “measures” dimension. MDX has a set of functions, known as member functions, each of which allow us to perform operations upon any member of a dimension

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2019-03-26 (first published: )

9,468 reads

Stairway to MDX

Stairway to MDX - Level 12: : MDX Time/Date Series Functions: OpeningPeriod() and ClosingPeriod() Functions

BI Architect Bill Pearson continues with the second of a set of articles surrounding a group of MDX functions specialized to support the analysis of data within the context of time / date. In this article, we will explore the OpeningPeriod() and ClosingPeriod() functions, and get hands-on practice with each in meeting sample business requirements.

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2015-07-22

4,843 reads

Stairway to MDX

Stairway to MDX - Level 11: MDX Time/Date Series Functions: PeriodsToDate() and Derivative Shortcut Functions

BI Architect Bill Pearson launches a set of articles surrounding a group of MDX functions specialized to meet the pervasive business need to analyze data within the context of time / date. In this article, we will overview the PeriodsToDate() function, and then we will introduce "shortcut" functions that are based upon it.

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2015-06-17

9,805 reads

Stairway to MDX

Stairway to MDX - Level 10: “Relative” Member Functions: .CurrentMember, .PrevMember, and .NextMember

SSAS Maestro, SQL Server MVP and Business Intelligence Architect Bill Pearson introduces three “major players” within the MDX “relative” functions. These basic, but highly employed, functions include the .CurrentMember, .PrevMember and .NextMember functions.

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2013-06-12

7,567 reads

Blogs

Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-Gen: Bring on the IOPS

By

If you’ve used Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose, you know the drill: to...

SQL, MDX, DAX – the languages of data

By

Ramblings of a retired data architect Let me start by saying that I have...

Setting PK Names in Redgate Data Modeler

By

A customer was testing Redgate Data Modeler and complained that it auto-generated PK names....

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Connecting Power BI to SSAS and effective user not working

By Paul Hernández

Hi everyone, Below is a consolidated summary of what we validated Architecture & data...

High Availability setup - has anyone seen this method?

By Paul Lancaster

Hi all, I recently moved to a new employer who have their HA setup...

Semantic Search in SQL Server 2025

By Deepam Ghosh

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Semantic Search in SQL Server...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Encoding URLs

I have this data in a SQL Server 2025 table:

CREATE TABLE Response
( ResponseID INT NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ResponsePK PRIMARY KEY
, ResponseVal VARBINARY(5000)
)
GO
If I want to get a value from this table that I can add to a URL in a browser, which of these code items produces a result I can use?

See possible answers