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TWEAKING THE DYNAMICS AX CUBE

STRUCTURES

Dynamics AX | Business Intelligence

The standard reporting cubes that are delivered with Dynamics AX 2012 are great. A lot of effort has been put into building a lot of information for the users to report from, including pre-built hierarchy's for drill downs.

For example, when creating a report showing the product names, the product numbers are built into the hierarchy, and can be shown directly below it. Although sometimes that can get in the way, and make the reports look a little untidy.

In this example we will show how you can extend out the existing data cubes that are delivered with Dynamics AX 2012 to add more reporting information, for you own personal dashboards, and as a result, make your reports look a little neater.

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Access the Cube

The first step is to access the default cube that is delivered with AX. To do this open up Business Intelligence Development Studio (a.k.a. BIDS, a.k.a. Visual Studio), and from the file menu choose the Open Analysis Services Database option.

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Access the Cube

Find the Dynamics AX cube on the server.

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Access the Cube

Now you will see all of the cube structures that are delivered with the product.

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Modify the

Released Products

Dimension

In this example we will add a new field to the Released Products dimension, for the Product Description (in addition to the one that is available as a hierarchy.

To do this, find the Released Product dimension in the server explorer panel. When you open this up you will see all of the dimension fields, the inbuilt hierarchy’s, and also the source data.

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Modify the

Released Products

Dimension

From the Data Source View, find the “PRODUCTNAME” field, and drag it over to the Released Products attributes.

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Modify the

Released Products

Dimension

Then give it a more friendlier name.

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Save Your Project

Now just save the project. It will tell you that you need to update the cube data and structure.

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Save Your Project

This one change needs to propagate through all of these areas in the cube.

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Save Your Project

So it takes you directly to the Process dialog box, and you just need to click on the run button to update the data cube.

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Save Your Project

All done.

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Simple List Of

Products

Now when look at my cube for reporting, I have a new field that I can use for the product description that does not have the hierarchy information. Much nicer

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Murray Fife