Using Tabular Models - SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Cube Development - page 346

Partitioning Tabular Models
Partitions in Tabular Models are one of the key features you would use Tabular Models
to support. This is the best way to support incremental processing of data in Tabular
Models.
Note
Power Pivot models do not support partitions.
Getting ready
In order to implement partitions, you need to have an existing table. You also need to
have a partitioning plan. Most often, partitioning makes the most sense when working
with data that resembles a fact table with a high row count and lots of measures. We
only have one data table in our model, Internet Sales . Order Date , that looks
like the best candidate for partitioning. It is unlikely that we will get orders out of se-
quence that will cause us to reprocess a large number of partitions. Next, we need to
determine the scheme we will use. We will focus on a historic partition, a previous six
months partition, and a current partition.
How to do it…
Creating partitions in a Tabular Model is fairly straightforward. You will need to bring
focus to the table you want to partition, the Internet Sales table, by performing
the following steps:
1. There are two easy ways to get the partition dialog box. You can select the
TABLE | Partitions… option on the menu or use the Partitions button on the
toolbar. Both options are available when a table is selected and shown in the
following screenshot. This will open the Partition Manager dialog as shown
in the following screenshot: