Performance Tuning and Troubleshooting Tabular Models - SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Cube Development - page 398

Understanding usability limits
A man goes to see his doctor and says, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this," and the doctor
says, "Don't do that." Performance tuning can only go so far as to remedy a problem
that might simply be a usability issue. Tabular technology can do impressive things
with data, but every technology has its practical limits, and the best solution might be
to change the approach or to educate users in ways to have a better experience. We
will begin with an example to demonstrate this principle.
Getting ready
Using Excel to browse the Tabular Model created in Chapter 10 , DAX Calculations
and Queries , you will play the role of a business user. Your objective is to first get the
total of year-to-date sales daily and then the customers and the products they pur-
chased. We will typically look at the report at the end of each month, so we'll need to
filter the data by year and month.
How to do it…
Use the following steps to create a sales report in Excel:
1. Open Excel 2013 and place the cursor in any blank worksheet.
2. On the DATA tab of the ribbon, choose From Other Sources and then choose
From Analysis Services .
3. In the Data Connection Wizard , enter your Tabular instance name and click
on the Next button.
4. Select the database you deployed in Chapter 10 , DAX Calculations and Quer-
ies , and then click on the Next button.
5. Click on the Finish button and save the connection if prompted.
6. On the Import Data dialog box, click on OK to insert a PivotTable at the cur-
rent position in the sheet.
7. Use the field list to the right to add the FullDate field from the Date table to
ROWS , and add the Sales YTD field measured from the Internet Sales
table to VALUES .