Using MDX for Generated Members in Essbase Reports

There are times when Essbase users may need to see an ad-hoc collection of members aggregated together in Essbase, and that isn’t always an easy task.  If it were an aggregation that is needed on a recurring basis, the Essbase administrator may add an alternate hierarchy to assist.  Other times, users might just create a spreadsheet with the desired members in different rows or columns and use Excel formulas to add them together.  In this blog post, I will cover a third option, the use of MDX to create dynamically-generated members, how to run them in Smart View, and how to make them much easier to use in Dodeca.

In order to illustrate how dynamically-generated members can be used, let’s consider an example using the Sample Basic database.  Here is a simple quarterly income statement query that I will use as the basis for this blog post:

SELECT
    {[Year].Children, Year} on COLUMNS,
    Hierarchize(Descendants([Profit]), POST) ON ROWS
FROM 
    Sample.Basic
WHERE 
    ([Market].[New York], [Product].[Colas], Actual)

The results from this simple query look like this:

This MDX is pretty straightforward, but what if you wanted to see how New York and Connecticut would look if they were combined?  This is the question that a generated member can return for you.

Generated members in MDX are created using the WITH MEMBER clause.  Moreover, the generated member can then be used anywhere a normal member can be used, even in a slicer dimension (or what we would call a ‘page field’ in the classic Essbase add-in or a point-of-view in Smart View).  Here is the query modified to use the new generated member:

WITH MEMBER
    [Market].[SelectedMarkets] AS 'SUM({[New York], [Connecticut]})'
SELECT
    {[Year].Children, Year} on COLUMNS,
    Hierarchize(Descendants([Profit]), POST) ON ROWS
FROM
    Sample.Basic
WHERE
    ([Market].[SelectedMarkets], Colas, Actual)

The results from this query look like this:

So far, so good, but there are a couple of things to note.  First, the member displayed in the POV is not a real member; that is to be expected.  This leads to the second thing in that you cannot refresh the query as an ad-hoc analysis; the dynamically generated member name will be replaced with the dimension member name in its place.

To go even further, what if you want to have multiple generated members?  In that case, the syntax is easy as you just continue with another MEMBER clause:

WITH MEMBER
    [Market].[SelectedMarkets] AS 'SUM({[New York], [Connecticut]})'
MEMBER
  [Product].[SelectedProducts] AS 'SUM({[Colas], [Grape]})'
SELECT
    {[Year].Children, Year} on COLUMNS,
    Hierarchize(Descendants([Profit]), POST) ON ROWS
FROM
    Sample.Basic
WHERE
    ([Market].[SelectedMarkets], [Product].[SelectedProducts], Actual)

The results of this query look like this:

The syntax for creating and using generated members is not that difficult, but there are a couple of things that make it a bit more difficult than it should be for end users to use this approach.

First, any time end users start having to deal with scripts of any kind, the level of complexity goes up exponentially.  As one of my mentors used to say, “The difference between zero lines of code and one line of code is much greater than the difference between one line of code and a hundred lines of code”.  In other words, it is hard to get users to deal with code of any kind.

Second, once an end user has to ‘write a line of code’, or script in this case, then they assume the responsibility for it being correct.  As there are differing levels of comfort and skill among users, the risk of error goes up.

Finally, when users use a script like the one used in this example, they have to type in the correct member names or, again, risk error. Here is the new MDX dialog in Smart View 11.1.2.5.720 showing where users type in the MDX including the member names.

To make it much easier for end users, Dodeca does a couple of things.  First, Dodeca developers can configure reports to use MDX without the end user ever having to know that MDX is powering the report ‘under-the-covers’.  Further, Dodeca has flexible Point-of-View selectors that allow the end user to simply pick which members they want to use in the query.

Dodeca report developers use tokens as a sort of substitution variables in the script.  The tokens are replaced in the script at run-time by the members selected by end users.  Here is the same script with tokens in place of the hard-coded values:

WITH MEMBER
  [Market].[SelectedMarkets] AS 'SUM({[T.Market]})'
MEMBER
    [Product].[SelectedProducts] AS 'SUM({[T.Product]})' 
SELECT
    {[Year].Children, Year} on COLUMNS,
    Hierarchize(Descendants([Profit]), POST) ON ROWS
FROM
    Sample.Basic
WHERE
    ([Market].[SelectedMarkets], [Product].[SelectedProducts], Actual)

The Dodeca Essbase Scripts editor has tools to help the report developer create and test MDX scripts.  Here are the Test Tokens available in the editor that allow developers to simulate the values plugged in by the Point-of-View selectors:

And the script itself in the scripts editor which has built-in testing facilities:

Finally, here is a Dodeca view that utilizes the tokenized MDX query and allows users to easily select the members they want dynamically aggregated and the report is produced without the risk of error.



Let me know if you would like to learn more about Dodeca and how it could help your company.

Breaking News! Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System Certified on Oracle Analytics Cloud!

Now that the Oracle Analytics Cloud, or "OAC", has been released, we had to get serious about our work with one of the Oracle Analytics Cloud components, the Essbase Cloud Service, or "EssCS" for short.  You would think that we should have been working hard on EssCS for quite some time, but we had been assured by Oracle product management that the Essbase Java API would be available in EssCS.  Of course, Dodeca was built using the Essbase Java API and thus we expected that support for EssCS would be very easy.

We got access to a production version of the EssCS last week and started our work.  As promised by product management, the Essbase Java API is available in EssCS and, believe it or not, we did not need to change a single line of source code in order to support the Essbase Cloud.  We did, however, have to update our build processes to use Java 8 instead of the decrepit Java 6 used in Essbase 11.x.

As far as configuration inside Dodeca itself, the only change we made was that we configured the APSUrl in the Essbase Connection object to point to the Essbase Cloud APS instance.  Note that the URL format has changed in the cloud.  The Java API was accessible in Essbase 9.3.1 through Essbase 11.1.2.4 using the format:

http://<server>:<port>/aps/JAPI

In the cloud, this has changed to:

http://<server>:<port>/essbase/japi

The Essbase Connection configuration looks pretty much the same as the configuration for an on premise connection configuration:

Of course, the Dodeca views look identical when run against an on premise or a cloud server:

In summary, it was trivial to test Dodeca using EssCS.  Every single Essbase functionality that we use in the product, from data grid operations to metadata operations and even report scripts, worked exactly the same as it does against an on premise Essbase cube.  Based on our testing, we are certifying the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System to work on the Oracle Analytics Cloud.

We have a number of innovations we plan to introduce in the near future aimed to improve the Essbase Cloud experience, so stay tuned.  If you are planning to come to Kscope17 in San Antonio, plan to attend the Dodeca Symposium and you may just be the first to see of these cool new things!

Cool Essbase MDX Stuff – Dimension Properties Edition

I have always liked MDX as it exposes very powerful operations for creating member sets.  It has this amazing ability to take a set of members, union it with another set of members, intersect it with yet another set of members, and then exclude members from yet another set.  This is very powerful.

Recently, I was talking with a customer about some creative uses for MDX and they told me about some cool things they had done with MDX.  Kudos to George Cooper and Esam Jaber at Gap for showing me some creative MDX.  Though this is a really cool and new-to-me technique, after doing some online searches I found that the technique isn’t new to everyone.  Both Gary Crisci and Harry Gates have blogged on it already at http://garycris.blogspot.com/2014/03/mdx-queries-to-get-parentchild-and.html and http://www.cubesavvy.com/cubesavvy-utilities-updated-mdx-capabilities, respectively.

This technique, which gives developers access to outline information that was not previously available, also seems to be lightning fast.  I decided maybe I need to write on it as well and, of course, put my own spin on it by showing how we can use this in the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System.

So, what is it?  They are called dimension properties and can utilize the PROPERTY_EXPR function.  This function provides the ability to query for, and return, members related to a given member.  The ability to return related members, on the same row, is something that is unique to the Essbase query languages.  The Grid API, or query-by-example and used to retrieve data from Essbase in the classic add-in, Smart View, and Dodeca, cannot do it out of the box.  The Essbase Report Script language, which is frequently used for exporting data, cannot do it either.  Regardless, we have customers who have asked to how have the parent member and/or the grandparent member on the same row as a member.   In the remainder of this blog post, I will explain dimension properties, and more specifically, the PROPERTY_EXPR function.

For this post, I will use the Geography dimension of the ASOSamp.Sample database.  The Geography dimension features members from different regions of the United States including details of the Region, the State, the City, and the Postal Code.  Here is a screenshot of some members in the Geography dimension:

Geography dimension members

With this dimension, let’s suppose you would like to get outline information at the city level, or level 1 in Essbase-speak.  In addition, let’s say you would like to have the state and the region as well.   Finally, while we are at it, maybe you also want to know the generation number of the member.  With dimension properties and the PROPERTY_EXPR function, you can get all of that information in one trip to the server.  Here is the query:

Select {} on COLUMNS,
Hierarchize(Descendants(Geography, Geography.Levels(1), SELF_AND_BEFORE), POST)
DIMENSION PROPERTIES
 GEN_NUMBER,
  PROPERTY_EXPR(Geography, MEMBER_NAME, Ancestor(CurrentAxisMember(), Geography.Generations(2)),"Gen2"),
  PROPERTY_EXPR(Geography, MEMBER_NAME, Ancestor(CurrentAxisMember(), Geography.Generations(3)),"Gen3")
 ON ROWS
FROM ASOSamp.Sample

Let’s break down the query to examine the components.  First, the Column axis specification is simple:

Select {} on COLUMNS,

The Column axis specification contains an empty set, but why do you need to even specify a set at all?  The Essbase MDX specification states that a query cannot skip axes based on a set order.  It seems much more natural for me to get data back on the second axis, or the Row axis, and as the Column axis is the first specified axis, a query cannot skip the Column axis and specify a Row axis.  As we really aren’t looking for any data to be returned in this query, then we can just use an empty set.

Next, let’s look at the Row axis specification:

Hierarchize(Descendants(Geography, Geography.Levels(1), SELF_AND_BEFORE), POST)

Let’s split this into sections starting from the inside out.  The Descendants function returns, naturally, all of the descendants of a given member down to, and including, level 1 members in the outline.  For this database, this query will return the Geography dimension down to the City level, but will not return the bottom, or zip code, level.

The member set returned by the Descendants function is then sorted by the Hierarchize function.

Hierarchize(Descendants(Geography, Geography.Levels(1), SELF_AND_BEFORE), POST)

The POST argument specifies that child members are sorted before their parent as they are in the spreadsheet add-ins.

Next, the DIMENSION PROPERTIES modifier for the Row axis specification provides the ability to return additional outline information related to each member returned in the set.  The DIMENSION PROPERTIES specify that the generation number, the related generation 2 and generation 3 members are returned for each member in the set.

DIMENSION PROPERTIES
 GEN_NUMBER,
  PROPERTY_EXPR(Geography, MEMBER_NAME, Ancestor(CurrentAxisMember(), Geography.Generations(2)),"Gen2"),
  PROPERTY_EXPR(Geography, MEMBER_NAME, Ancestor(CurrentAxisMember(), Geography.Generations(3)),"Gen3")

The GEN_NUMBER argument is self-explanatory, so let’s look at the PROPERTY_EXPR function to see how it works.  Consider this portion of the statement:

PROPERTY_EXPR(Geography, MEMBER_NAME, Ancestor(CurrentAxisMember(), Geography.Generations(2)),"Gen2")

The first argument is the dimension name, so that is easy enough.

The second argument, called the property_name argument, has a number of valid values as documented by Oracle in the documentation.  Valid values are MEMBER_NAME, MEMBER_ALIAS, LEVEL_NUMBER, GEN_NUMBER, IS_EXPENSE, COMMENTS, RELATIONAL_DESCENDANTS, MEMBER_UNIQUE_NAME), an attribute dimension name, an alias-table name, or a UDA.  At the time of this writing, the current docs are located at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26232_01/doc.11122/esb_tech_ref/frameset.htm?mdx_property_expressions.html.

The third argument is called member_value_expression and this is where the magic happens.  In this argument, you can use a number of functions that return exactly one member that is related to the current member.  In my example above, the Ancestor function is being used to return, for each member in the set as specified by the CurrentAxisMember function, the ancestor of that member at a given generation.  Among other functions are functions that allow you to get the parent, first child, next sibling, or previous sibling of the current member.

The fourth and final argument is used to give a title to the column containing the extended information.

So, now that we know a bit about this syntax, what does it look like in EAS?  

MDX dimension properties in EAS

In their blogs, both Gary and Harry talk about ways to actually consume this information.  Harry wrote a special interface to display dimension properties returned by MDX.  Gary talked about the idea of using an Excel macro to parse the output.  I had my own ideas on how to use dimension properties in Dodeca.  I setup a simple Dodeca report and used a only 3 lines of our automation language, workbook scripting, to build the view.  Here is screenshot of my simple Dodeca view.

Dynamic MDX View in Dodeca

While running this view in Dodeca, the user can filter based on Geography, Product, and Stores dimensions and the report is highly dynamic.  The automation in Dodeca performs these tasks:

1. Returns members and properties as the descendants of a user-selected Geography member
2. Retrieves and places the dimension properties and the members on the worksheet
3. Places the selected Product and Stores dimension members in the proper location
4. Retrieves Essbase data into the worksheet
5. Creates Excel grouping based on the generation number

I will leave the step-by-step of creating this view in Dodeca to another blog post.

So, how could you use dimension properties?

Announcing the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, Version 7 and the Dodeca Excel Add-In for Essbase

After 18 months of hard work, Applied OLAP is proud to announce the general availability of the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, version 7, and the all-new Dodeca Excel Add-In for Essbase.

The Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System provides customers the ability to automate spreadsheet functionality, reducing the risk of spreadsheet errors while increasing productivity.  It combines unprecedented ease-of-use for business users using spreadsheets for planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analysis tasks.  It also provides a robust, programmable development environment enabling companies to create spreadsheet applications tailored to their specific needs.

The new Dodeca Excel Add-In for Essbase was created as a drop-in replacement for the classic Essbase add-in and is the world’s only Excel add-in focused exclusively on Essbase.  The new add-in supports the most common actions used by Essbase traditionalists, supports the corresponding VBA functions, and includes a built-in Excel ribbon.  Early adopters have also been impressed by the speed of retrieving data, commenting they found the Dodeca Excel Add-In as fast as, or even faster, than the classic Excel Add-In for Essbase.  It is supported for Excel 2010, 2013, and 2016 and for Essbase 9.3.1 and higher.




Dodeca 7 includes new features and functionality for security, selectors, logging, and enhanced workbook scripting.

The enhanced security features add the ability to more easily manage users, roles, and permissions to access a Dodeca application.  The new security features include:

• User Management – You can now track, monitor, and control user access to a Dodeca application and more easily monitor your Dodeca user base.  This feature enables customers to control individual user access to a specific application, enable users for admin access, and manage user mapping to roles while also tracking metrics such as the first, last, and count of user logins.  This feature also logs metrics on the users system to enable Dodeca administrators to more easily support their users.
  
  
  
  Here is an example of the metrics stored for each user record.
  
  

• User Roles – In addition to provisioning roles via Essbase, Microsoft Active Directory, or LDAP groups using Dodeca authentication services, you can now create your own groups directly in Dodeca and map them to users.  In addition, these new roles can be configured to be additive to the roles provided by other authentication services.  

• Application Session Timeout – You can now prevent users from keeping a Dodeca session open indefinitely by specifying an inactivity timeout or by specifying a designated shutdown time.
  
  

The new logging features provide the ability for customers to both easily track what their users are running in the system and assist our support team if and when support is needed.  The new logging features include:

• View Usage Logging – View usage is now automatically logged in the server.  The logs include not only identifying information for the view and the user, but also include performance information, error information, and tokens used in the view generation.
  
  

• Client-side Request and Response XML Logging – The XML traffic traveling between the client and the server may now be logged to a directory on the client machine.  This logging expands on the Server-side Request and Response XML Logging to make it easier to gather the XML traffic for a single user.  In turn, the XML captured can be used by our support team to easily replicate transactions for our developers if and when necessary.

The selector enhancements include improvements to both view selectors and member selectors.  The improvements include:

• View Selector Relational Hierarchy Generation – You may now populate the entire View Hierarchy, or alternatively, populate one or more branches, based on the results of a relational query.
  
  

• View Selector Hierarchy Item Access Filters – Previously, you could control the View Hierarchies available to a given user.  This new filter provides the ability to control which view hierarchy items are presented in the view selector based on the current user’s roles.
  
  

• Relational Treeview Point-of-View Selector List– You may now configure a hierarchy of point-of-view items based on the results of a relational query.
  
  

• Enhanced Essbase Treeview Point-of-View Selector List Expansion and Selection Filtering – You can now filter Essbase member content and selectable status based on one or more specified filters including generation number, level number, member name, alias, or shared status.

View editing enhancements make it even easier to create and modify Views in Dodeca:

• Enhanced SQLPassthroughDataSet Query Editing – You can now define token values to use for testing tokenized SQL queries in the Test Data Set utility.

• Improved Token Editor – You can now view and edit tokens and their values in an improved grid layout.
  
  

Workbook scripting functionality adds more flexibility to Dodeca via 108 events that provide the opportunity for customers to extend Dodeca, 116 configurable methods (actions that can be taken in response to the events), and 138 functions that provide extended information to the workbook script.

The new workbook script functionality includes:

• New Events
• BeforeBuildExecute - Allows a workbook script to cancel the build before the view is covered.
• BeforeRefreshExecute - Allows a workbook script to cancel the refresh before the view is covered.
• Shown - Raised when the view is initially shown.  The event is raised before the framework applies the view’s AutoBuildOnOpen property, which allows a workbook script to set the property dynamically.
• New Methods
• ExportToExcel – Provides the ability to export view and point-of-view information in an exported Excel file.  This information is used to regenerate the view upon Excel file import which enables off-line data entry in Excel with subsequent database updates in Dodeca.
• SetSelectorConfiguration - Provides the ability to add or remove a point-of-view selector to/from a view dynamically.
• Enhanced Methods
• CallWebService – Added a new RESTRequest overload, which allows web service calls to made to RESTful web services.
• SendEmail - Added a new ServletSMTP overload, which sends email from the Dodeca server rather than from the client.  This is useful in circumstances in which SMTP mail must come from an approved IP address.
• SetEntry – Added a new Added FormulaArray overload which allows Excel array formulas to be entered programmatically.
• SetFill - Added a new Clear overload, which clears the fill color and pattern from the specified range.
• New Functions
• ColumnWidth - Returns the column width based on the active cell or a given cell.
• RowHeight - Returns the row height based on the active cell or a given cell.
• DataPointHasCellNote - Returns a boolean indicating if the active or specified data cell has Essbase LRO cell notes associated with it.
• IsInCharacterRange - Returns a boolean indicating whether the specified string is limited to the specified character range.  This function can be used to detect multi-byte characters in a string.
• Enhanced Functions
• SheetCount - Added an optional IncludeHiddenSheets argument, which controls whether the returned count includes both visible and hidden sheets or only visible sheets.

For more information, we recommend you download and read the latest Dodeca release notes from the registered section of our website.  As always, you may also reach out to us via email or call us at
256.885.4371.