November 8, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Hi,
I am trying to find a way to connect to AS 2005 cube via Internet Explorer. Is there a built in functionality to do this in AS 2005 or do I have to buy third party software?
Thanks.
November 22, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Remember that SSRS comes with Report Builder which can be used to create ad-hoc reports. Although this is a smart-client application, it is kicked off from the Report Manager web app. If you do not see the Report Builder option in Report Manager, you need to change the permission to enable the feature.
Also, if you have MOSS, you can create Excel pivot charts that consume SSAS data and these can be published to a SharePoint site and then viewed on-line using Excel Services (which is part of SharePoint enterprise edition).
November 23, 2007 at 2:20 am
I thought the excel services in MOSS were only available in the 2007 version and not 2003? The reason I ask is that I wanted to have online pivot tables in our sharepoint site, but was told that the excel services were only in the 2007 version (which we haven't upgraded to yet)
November 23, 2007 at 7:45 am
There's actually a whole series of front end or tools. Third party tools (Like Cognos, Business Objects, etc.) are good as well, but be warned, each tool / environment fits to specific needs. You have to be clear what you're looking for. Let's look at the Microsoft stack:
Excel: You can use Excel as a client/server tool in an internet environment. You have to implement MSMDPUMP.dll. Excel is good from a drag and drop and ease of use. However, you won't be able to manage any "client defined" calculations (they all need to be in the cube). As well, Excel is limited in it's ability to manage concept like sorting and filtering.
OWC: Both better and worse. This is great in terms of an easy to deploy, IE hosted connection, once you realize it's an IE plugin. Easy to use with things like sharepoint and go if you're just looking to provide a basic connection. Hard to develop a reporting strategy around this component without some significant development. (No native way to persist multiple report definitions.)
ProClarity: a recent acquisition of Microsoft. Good general overall ad-hoc abilities and it's web enabled. The Web Professional tool is used to build reports, Web Standard to access them. Users can make some customizations and save them in "My Views". Weak points are that it only has an Excel export and printing is terrible. Limited customizations.
Report Services: included with SQL Server, it provides a good foundation for templated, operational reports. Lots of potential to extend and augment the reporting experience. It's not really a ad-hoc environment plus RS doesn't really understand OLAP (i.e. ditch the query wizard and learn MDX.) Fully a web product and great integration with Visual Studio. Doing OLAP reports is a little quirky, but keep at it. (Many of the component defaults aren't set for optimum OLAP.)
Performance Point: This is Microsoft's attempt to knit all of the above together. I'd love it if someone would start a forum on this board about PP 2008. I'll be doing a full scale evaluation / review of the technology next quarter, but I'd love some honest info on how they are doing. For example, I've heard that they are migrating ProClarity functionality or .Net (which is good) but are only implementing a subset of features (oh, oh.) ProClarity development has slowed somewhat since the acquisition, so it looks like it'll be a year or so before things pick up steam again.
So there's no natural answer. Think long and hard about what requirements you need to support before deciding. Plan on implementing an option B 6 months in, as your user base changes it's perspectives. (And they will!)
Good luck.
November 25, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Dave Balsillie (11/23/2007)
There's actually a whole series of front end or tools. Third party tools (Like Cognos, Business Objects, etc.) are good as well, but be warned, each tool / environment fits to specific needs. You have to be clear what you're looking for. Let's look at the Microsoft stack:
Does this mean you can publish reports on the web, have user newsboxes and all Cognos web client functionality by somehow porting AS cubes with Cognos server component?
November 26, 2007 at 2:34 am
thx for the details - its gonna make for an interesting period ahead. What I use currently is SSRS 2005 for our more std reports, and those in the the organization with a bit of savvy have access to Excel with connection to create "ad-hoc" reports.
Its a useful combination which works, but as some of the users are working over a WAN, I thought actually using the OWC on the Sharepoint site would speed things up for them.
November 26, 2007 at 8:29 am
I must confess I didn't quite understand SSChasing Mays post. As to the how much of the Cognos environment is supported with MSAS cubes, I'll defer to someone who's looked at this in more depth. (I hope to to a full crawl of that technology in Jan 08.
The key problem you'll experience with OWC on Sharepoint, is the ability to create multiple reports for your users. You can instantiate multiple OWC on sharepoint quite easily, and format each of them with a different report. The problem is how far do you go? What if you have 50 or a 100 reports? The OWC doesn't connect to a "library" of reports (like MSRS).
Additional: remember that the OWC has a narrow subset of functionality. For example, there's no word wrap. (Which will come up more often than you'd like.) But it's a quick way to open an ad-hoc link to MSAS, particularily in an intranet senario.
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