Mastering OLAP Reports: Parameterized Grouping

About the Series …

This
article is a member of the series MSSQL Server Reporting Services. The series is designed to
introduce MSSQL Server Reporting Services (“Reporting Services”),
presenting an overview of its features, with tips and techniques for real-world
use. For more information on the series in general, please see my initial Database Journal article, A New Paradigm for Enterprise Reporting. For the software components, samples and tools
needed to complete the hands-on portion of this article see BlackBelt
Administration: Linked Reports in Report Manager, another article within this
series.

About the Mastering OLAP Reporting Articles …

One of
the first things that become clear to “early adopters” of Reporting Services
is that the “knowledgebase” for Analysis Services reporting with this
tool is, to say the least, sparse. As I stated in my article, Mastering
OLAP Reporting: Cascading Prompts (where I treated the subject of cascading
parameters for Reporting Services 2000), the purpose of the Mastering
OLAP Reporting subset of my Reporting Services series is to focus on techniques for using Reporting
Services for OLAP reporting. In many cases, which I try to outline in my articles at
appropriate junctures, the functionality of well-established, but expensive,
solutions, such as Cognos PowerPlay, can be met in most respects by Reporting
Services – at a tiny fraction of the cost.

The
vacuum of documentation in this arena, even taking into consideration the
release of several books surrounding Reporting Services in recent years,
continues to represent a serious “undersell” of Reporting Services, from
an OLAP reporting perspective. I hope to contribute to making this
arena more accessible for everyone, and to share my implementation and
conversion experiences as the series evolves. In the meantime, we can rest
assured that the OLAP potential in Reporting Services will
contribute significantly to the inevitable commoditization of business
intelligence, via the integrated Microsoft BI solution.

For
more information about the Mastering OLAP Reporting articles, see the section
entitled “About the Mastering OLAP Reporting Articles” in my article Ad Hoc
TopCount and BottomCount Parameters.

Overview

In
recent articles within this series, we have focused upon various aspects of parameterization
within the Reporting Services environment. In some cases we have
supported parameterization from structures completely contained within Reporting
Services, and in others we have created parameter (predominantly
picklist) support from within other layers of the integrated Microsoft business
intelligence solution. As many of us are aware, enterprise reporting
applications typically allow for parameterization (via what are
sometimes known as “prompts” or “parameter prompts”) to enable information
consumers to quickly find the information they need from a report. These
parameters, whose values are physically passed to an axis specification or a
slicer in the dataset query, often act to put filters into place “on the fly;”
the “filters” are thus enacted when the consumer types or selects a value, or a
series of values, at run time.

Because they allow
information consumers to assume a role in guiding the delivery of information –
and add a “self-serve” component to the reporting experience – parameterization
in general is a popular topic in the forums and newsgroups of most enterprise
reporting applications. My first exposure to the concepts of parameterization
was in working with very early versions of Cognos Impromptu. My
continued application of those concepts over the succeeding years within Cognos,
Crystal, Business Objects, MicroStrategy,
and several more specialized applications, has given me a great appreciation
for the opportunities that exist in the business environment for effective
parameterization. Whether the reports are to be printed, displayed on screen,
or any of the other options for production / deployment, it’s easy to see the
value that parameterization can add in making the selection and delivery of
enterprise data more focused and consumer-friendly.

While
I have extended parameterization concepts into many arenas, none have captured
my attention as much as their deployment within the integrated Analysis
Services / Reporting Services pairing. These applications work
together to provide business intelligence in a way that is powerful and highly
flexible. Indeed, I often advise clients who are attempting to locate a
consultant to implement the integrated Microsoft BI solution (composed of MSSQL
Server, MSSQL Server Analysis Services, and Reporting Services)
to seek a “multidimensional architect” – a practitioner who has a good working
knowledge of each of the components, and who can determine where, among
three or more possible “logical layers,” to place which components so as
to optimize the system as a whole.

• Mastering OLAP Reporting: Cascading Prompts
• Customize Automatically Created Parameter Support Objects
  
• Parameter Support Objects, Pt II: Support OLAP Parameter
  Defaults with Datasets
• Support
  Parameterization from Analysis Services
• Parameterization from Analysis Services – Cascading
  Picklists
• Support Parameterization from Analysis Services –
  Parameter Defaults
• Mastering
  OLAP Reports: Parameterizing Number of “Look Back” Periods with the MDX
  LastPeriods() Function, Parts I and II
• Mastering
  OLAP Reports: Parameterizing Number of “Top” Items with the MDX TopCount()
  Function, Parts I and II

Throughout various articles of this series, we have
generated simple lists to provide virtually all we need to support
parameterization within Reporting Services and other enterprise
reporting applications. In this article, we will perform an examination of the
straightforward mechanics behind the parameterization of grouping,
and sorting of the members within the group we select. We will get hands-on
exposure to parameterizing grouping within a preexisting sample OLAP
report. Beginning with the general concepts, we will continue into a practice
session where we set up a scenario, within which we work with a basic OLAP
report, to expose the steps involved. In examining the rudiments of grouping
parameterization within an OLAP report containing a matrix data region, we
will:

• Open the
  sample Report Server project, AdventureWorks Sample Reports, and ascertain
  connectivity of its shared Analysis Services data source;
• Create a clone
  of an existing sample Analysis Services report, containing a matrix data
  region, with which to perform our practice exercise;
• Make structural
  modifications to the clone report, to prepare for our practice exercise session
  with parameters;
• Perform a
  brief overview of the concepts behind ad hoc grouping, which we will use
  to support the stated reporting needs of a hypothetical client;
• Modify the
  existing dataset within, and add a new dataset to, the sample report clone, to
  support group and group member sorting parameterization;
• Make
  modifications to the report layout to support the stated client
  reporting needs;
• Add Report
  Parameters to support ad hoc group
  and group member sorting selection;
• Modify matrix
  settings to fully enable the newly supported group and group member sorting
  parameterization;
• Modify the
  face of the report to dynamically reflect grouping parameter selections
  made at run time.
• Discuss the
  results obtained with the development techniques that we exploit throughout our practice session.