Introduction to MSSQL Server 2000 Analysis Services: Reporting Options for Analysis Services Cubes: ProClarity Professional, Part I - Page 3

January 20, 2004

Exploration and Analysis: Decomposition - It's a Good Thing

ProClarity provides a host of ways to leverage the strengths of MSAS, and makes it easy for analysts and power users to access and take advantage of MSAS' analytical functionality. The interface is intuitive, and users find it remarkably straightforward, from their introduction to the product, to explore complex data, track key performance indicators and publish, or to otherwise share, their findings with other members of the organization.

Once we have established connectivity to the Budget cube, we can explore the data to analyze overall performance and to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that drive profitability. We will examine some of the key features of ProClarity in this section, and use it to explore and analyze the Budget cube. Let's get started with the following steps, beginning where we left off in the previous section, at the Select how you want to visualize your information dialog:

The Welcome dialog for the Decomposition Tree Wizard appears, as depicted in Illustration 6.

The Decomposition Tree Wizard initializes, and prompts us for specification, in the dialog that appears next, of the measure and dimension upon we wish to perform decomposition.

The What do you want to analyze? dialog appears, with our settings, as shown in Illustration 7.

We are specifying that we wish to decompose the Amount measure (the only measure in the somewhat simple Budget cube) for the Account dimension. In other words, we want to be able to determine the values of the accounts that make up the summary numbers appearing in the FoodMart 2000 financial reporting levels - to "break down" the rollup amounts therein into their constituent, hierarchical account parts.

The initial view appears, with the top (or All Account) rollup amount displayed in the view shown in Illustration 8.

We can readily see the value of Amount displayed ($ 398,755.69) is the total (100%) rollup value. The labels for the box exhibit link-like behavior when we hover the mouse pointer over them.

We see Net Income appear next. The reason for this is that the default year, 1997, contains only P & L / Income Statement account activity in the simple Budget cube. We note that the Level 02 label appears underneath the "All" label in the upper left corner of the pane, reflecting that we are on Level 2 of the hierarchy.

We see a display very similar to the rollover results for the All level, except we note the appearance of member property information, as well. (For a discussion of the meaning of the Unary Operator: + detail, see our DatabaseJournal articles Custom Cubes: Financial Reporting - Part I and Part II.)

A context menu appears.

The drill down is accomplished, leaving us with the view shown in Illustration 12.

In addition, the Level 3 indicator appears in the upper left corner of the pane. We can also "get our bearings" at anytime, determining our location from the perspective of the hierarchy, by noting the information at the bottom of the dialog (in this instance, it states "Decomposition of Net Income," indicating that the Net Sales and Total Expense boxes roll up to the Net Income level in the Account dimension hierarchy).