Using Tabular Models - SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Cube Development - page 341

Scripting Tabular Models using XMLA
In this recipe, you will learn how to create XMLA files that can be used for a variety of
purposes including deploying and processing.
Getting ready
Unlike most of our work to this point, we will now be working primarily out of SQL
Server Management Studio. We will also be working with a deployed Tabular Model
database. If you have not deployed your database yet, refer to the previous recipe for
deployment options.
How to do it…
While XMLA can definitely look daunting, generating XMLA scripts is quite easy, as
shown in the following steps:
1. Open up Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio , and connect to the
tabular instance you are using for development.
2. Right-click on the database and navigate to the following sequence of options:
Script | Script Database as | CREATE To | New Query Editor Window . This
will generate the XMLA script to create the database in the query window. If
you want to create a new database on a different server, you can use this
script.
3. The same technique can be used to generate multiple XMLA scripts for use in
other tools. For instance, right-click on the database and select Process from
the menu. This will open a dialog box for processing the database (reload-
ing the data). You can set the properties you would like, and then instead of
clicking on OK , use the Script button at the top of the dialog box to generate
XMLA to process the database using the selected options.
Any script created here can be executed in SQL Server Management Studio
or any other tool that can execute XMLA.