dmaeda bi design to reports

SQL Server BI - Design to Report (aka Data Driven Fishing)

Dave MaedaAug 2009

dave.maeda@gmail.com

Topics

Background Design Integration Services Analysis Services Report Services Future Considerations

Background

A suitable project: FishLog – Non-trivial– Not related to any sensitive data– A reporting intensive application

FishLog– A collection of fishing related data

Fish Location Techniques Equipment

Background (cont’d)

FishLog Background– 1995 - Started as a collection of flat files organized with Visual

REXX on OS/2.– 2000 - Migrated to VisualAge Smalltalk on Windows.

Retained flat file structure. Enhanced flat file structure with self defining features. Added XML support to notes structure.

– Mar 2009 - Migrated flat files to a MySQL RDBMS on Linux. New PHP code to convert flat files into a .csv format. Existing Java code to manipulate .csv files.

– Aug 2009 – Use .CSV files as input to SSIS processes.

Design

Used DBDesigner to create ER diagrams and DDL.

– Naming conventions slightly different than Visio but still acceptable to SSIS.

Lifted layout from flat file structure.

Integration Services

Used SSIS to load AS database tables from .CSV files created from flat files.

Integration Services (cont’d)

Used a “package of packages” to load AS database.

Analysis Services

Build a cube from AS database.

One calculated member.

Three dimensional hierachies.

– Dates– Baits– Locations

Report Services

Summary reports.– Year to Year Data– Yearly Summaries– …

Report Services (cont’d)

Detailed reports.– Fish by Bait

“What will they hit?”

– Bait by Fish “What will this catch?” Is this fly worth tying?”

– Fish by Location “What can you catch

here?”

– Location by Fish “Where do I go to find

some …?”

– …

Future Considerations

Dimensional Updates Data Mining Extensions More Reports More Success …