Introduction
Kepion solutions are typically developed in SSAS Developer or Enterprise edition, but most production environments are in Standard edition. Using different editions for development and deployment can cause data aggregation and deployment issues. These issues arise because Standard edition supports most but not all of the features in the Developer and Enterprise editions.
This article explains:
- Enabling SSAS Enterprise features in Kepion (for system admins).
- How these features behave depending on your SSAS edition and workarounds for Standard edition users (for application modelers).
Enable SSAS Enterprise features
Note: By default, the Enable SSAS Enterprise setting is disabled for all environments regardless of the SSAS edition. Even if your environment is in Enterprise edition, you must enable this setting to use SSAS Enterprise features.
1. Go to the System module.
2. From the left navigation, go to the target solution > Advanced tab.
3. Select the checkbox of Enable SSAS Enterprise feature to enable it.
Feature behavior and workarounds
The following section explains the various SSAS Enterprise features. SSAS Standard users will see how Kepion behaves if they try to use these features with SSAS Standard. We also provide workarounds to emulate these Enterprise features on SSAS Standard.
Note: Upon deployment, you will be notified if SSAS Enterprise features are used in your application, but your SSAS environment does not support them, or you have not enabled them.
Time Aggregation by Account
The By Account logic is typically used for Balance Sheet calculations. These calculations typically require specific aggregation based on the Time dimension. For instance, the Q1 member of the Time dimension should not aggregate data from Jan, Feb, and March but instead show just the last period's data. For most standard account logic, the By Account logic is unnecessary.
Behavior for SSAS Standard
The By Account setting can be enabled/disabled regardless of your SQL Server edition. Kepion will ignore the setting and use SUM instead of the By Account aggregation.
The solution will deploy successfully even with an incorrect By Account configuration.
Workaround for SSAS Standard
You can recreate the By Account logic by writing custom MDX on the cube. Kepion, just like SSAS, supports all valid MDX.
Semi-additive measures
Semi-additive measures are measures that need to be aggregated differently over different dimensions. Product inventory, for example, would require you to sum up stock by warehouse or country but likely not by time.
Kepion supports the following semi-additive measures:
- By Account
- Average of Children
- First Child
- Last Child
- First Non-Empty
- Last Non-Empty
Behavior for SSAS Standard
Semi-additive measures are unavailable to add to models. You might have existing semi-additive measures, which will still appear in your list of measures for the model. They will not run, however.
The solution will still deploy successfully. Kepion will ignore the semi-additive measures, and the affected calculations will use SUM instead.
Workaround for SSAS Standard
You can recreate the semi-additive measures by writing custom MDX on the cube. Kepion, just like SSAS, supports all valid MDX.
Perspectives
Perspectives allow you to generate smaller subsets of models for reporting with third-party analysis tools (e.g., Excel).
Behavior for SSAS Standard
Perspectives are not supported whatsoever. Your list will show existing perspectives, but your third-party analysis tools will not recognize them. You can only remove perspectives; adding perspectives is disabled.
The solution will deploy successfully, but perspectives will be unavailable.
Workaround for SSAS Standard
Unfortunately, we do not have a workaround at this time.
Partitions
Partitions hold data in your models. SSAS Enterprise allows you to have as many active partitions as you want per measure group.
Behavior for SSAS Standard
Partitions are constrained, limiting you to three active partitions per measure group.
Note: All Kepion models come with a Writeback and a Rule partition. If active, both count to your total.
You can still add as many partitions as you want, but you cannot exceed the limit of active partitions. Remove or turn off partitions as necessary.
Attention: Deployment will fail if you have over three active partitions in a measure group.
Workarounds for SSAS Standard
- The Writeback partition can be removed or disabled if users are not inputting data to the model.
- The Rule partition can be removed or disabled if no view rules publish data to the model.
- Partitions holding reporting data can be consolidated.
- Partitions holding calculated data can be consolidated.
- Partitions with data that does not require frequent updates (e.g., Actuals and Archive) can be consolidated.