Analyzing MSAS Cubes: Additional ProClarity Features
As we stated in Part I, ProClarity Professional forms
part of a toolset that enables analysts and other power users to create, manage
and publish:
-
Reports
-
KPIs
-
Queries
-
Datasets
-
Logic
The
destination options that are available are numerous, as the ProClarity Analytics Suite
anticipates many of the requirements that appear in today's enterprise business
intelligence implementations. As we have already noted, ProClarity includes
ad-hoc analytic capabilities, robust query and calculation options and powerful
visualization functionality that affords flexible navigation to the business
user. In addition to its capacity for insulating the practitioner from much of
the complication that underlies the analysis process, ProClarity provides
another powerful incentive to potential customers - it promises substantial
savings over the cost of one the large, proprietary solutions that have
dominated the business intelligence market sector for
years. ProClarity's architecture allows us to build robust,
powerful OLAP reports and business intelligence applications based directly on
the MSAS cubes, and allows the flexibility to select relational and other
components singly and independently. This affords an organization the
opportunity to assemble a custom solution tailored ideally to its own industry
and reporting environment, using a "best of class" selection approach
for the applications it needs.
A Return to Our Review of the Basics
Let's open the Briefing Book
where we left off in Part
I, and return to
the view with which we closed the article.
1.
Click the Start
button.
2.
Select Programs
--> ProClarity.
3.
Select Professional
from the Submenu that appears.
The Welcome
dialog appears.
4.
Select the Local
Briefing Book radio button.
5.
Click OK.
The Open Briefing
Book ... dialog appears.
6.
Navigate to, and
select, the Briefing Book file in which we saved our work at the
conclusion of Part I, (I named mine ANSYS19-01.bbk),
as depicted in Illustration 1.
Illustration 1:
Select the Briefing Book Saved in Part I
The Briefing Book
opens, displaying the page we saved in Part I.
8.
Select View --> Business Charts --> Bar Chart from the main menu.
The bar chart appears,
with the title bar indicating that we are viewing Amount for Information
Systems, 1997 (Store City).
9.
Select View --> Grid --> Bottom from the main menu.
10. The combined view, with the bar
chart atop the grid, appears as shown in Illustration 2.
Illustration 2:
View Combining Bar Chart and Grid
Notice the tabs in the pane to the left of the combined view
(ensure that the Dimension button in the toolbar is depressed). In this pane, we can select
any given tab, titled with the dimension or measure that it represents, to
perform various operations on them. Much can be accomplished among these
objects with the menus available in context menus that appear with a right
click on the respective object.
We also see
the physical assignment in the view of the dimensions and measures, with regard
to Rows, Columns and Background.
11. Click the Measures tab to
bring its contents forward.
12. Right-click the solitary measure, Amount.
The context menu that appears,
displayed in Illustration 3, is fairly typical.
Illustration 3: Context Menu for
Measure / Dimension Object
13. Click New Measure on the
context menu.
The New Measure
Wizard - Step 1 of 2 dialog appears, as shown in Illustration
4.
Illustration 4: The New Measure
Wizard - Step 1 of 2 Dialog
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