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Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

By : Davide Moraschi
3.8 (11)
Buy this Book
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Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

3.8 (11)
By: Davide Moraschi
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Business intelligence is becoming more important by the day, with cloud offerings and mobile devices gaining wider acceptance and achieving better market penetration. MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is a complete business intelligence platform that covers all the data analysis needs of an enterprise. Scorecards, dashboards, and reports can be explored and delivered on desktop, the Web, mobile devices, and the Cloud. With the latest Visual Insight tool, MicroStrategy brings the power of BI to the business users, allowing them to discover information without the help of IT personnel. Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook covers the full cycle of a BI project with the MicroStrategy platform, from setting up the software to using dashboards in the cloud and on mobile devices. This book uses step-by-step instructions to teach you everything from the very basics to the more advanced topics. We will start by downloading and installing the software and a well-known sample SQL Server database. Then, one brick at a time, we will construct a fully-featured BI solution with a web interface, mobile reporting, and agile analytics. The chapters are ordered by increasing difficulty, and each one builds on top of the preceding chapter so that the learning process is progressive. The examples given in this book are practical, and you will be able to see the immediate result of your efforts. We will first cover setting up the platform, including the creation of the metadata and the different objects that are part of a BI project: tables, attributes, and metrics. Then, we take a look at how to create and analyze reports, charts, documents, and dashboards, as well as how to manipulate data with the desktop application, the web Interface, and an iPad device. The last part of the book is dedicated to advanced topics like the new agile analytics technology from MicroStrategy, where we cover both Visual Insight and MicroStrategy Cloud Express. Whether you are a database developer, data analyst, or a business user, Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook will get you up to speed with one of the most powerful BI platforms on the market with the smallest possible investment of time and money.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
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Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook
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Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook
Credits
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Credits
Foreword
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Foreword
About the Author
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About the Author
About the Reviewers
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About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
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www.PacktPub.com
Preface
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Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with MicroStrategy
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Getting Started with MicroStrategy
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Introduction
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Installing SQL Server 2012 Express LocalDB
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Installing SQL Server Native Client 11.0
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Installing SQL Server 2012 Command Line Utilities
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Setting up the AdventureWorks DW sample database
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Installing the .NET Framework 4.0 and the 4.0.2 update
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Checking whether IIS is enabled and working
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Installing MicroStrategy Suite
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Registering the MicroStrategy License
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Metadata and data warehouse
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Creating ODBC DSN for metadata and data warehouse
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Modifying the logon account for the Intelligence Server
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Creating the metadata and configuring the Intelligence Server
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Opening the MicroStrategy Desktop application
2
The First Steps in a MicroStrategy Project
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The First Steps in a MicroStrategy Project
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Introduction
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Creating an empty project
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Setting up a data warehouse connection and selecting tables
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Modifying a table structure
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Using logical tables to create custom views
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Generating constants with SELECT statements
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Schema Objects – Attributes
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Schema Objects – Attributes
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Introduction
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Attribute forms – ID and DESC
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Using functions in an attribute form
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Parent-child relationship I
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Parent-child relationship II
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Other attribute forms
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Selecting which forms are displayed
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Building Data Explorer Hierarchies
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Creating an attribute-only report
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Parent-child relationship in a report
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Filters on attributes
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Objects – Facts and Metrics
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Objects – Facts and Metrics
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Introduction
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Creating a simple counter fact and metric
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Using SQL View to inspect SELECT statements
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Understanding the GROUP BY clause
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Adding more facts
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Filters on metrics
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Creating ranking metrics
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Grouping at a different level (level metrics)
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Embedding filters inside metrics
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Using Metric Join Type in reports
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Creating a previous month metric (transformation)
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Data Display and Manipulation – Reports
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Data Display and Manipulation – Reports
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Introduction
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Going deeper into data with drill down
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Manipulating grids – Pivot and page-by
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Dynamically adding and removing objects in reports
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The bottom line – customizing subtotals
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Avoiding missteps – NULL values in facts
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How to sort data in grids
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Emphasizing numbers with conditional formatting
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Printing and exporting reports
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Restricting results with view filters
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Data Analysis and Visualization – Graphs
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Data Analysis and Visualization – Graphs
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Introduction
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Displaying both grid and graph in the same view
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Drag-and-drop objects using drop zones
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Beautify your chart
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Display multiple metrics with dual axis charts
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Conditional formatting with thresholds
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Analysis on the Web – Documents and Dashboards
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Analysis on the Web – Documents and Dashboards
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Introduction
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Setting up MicroStrategy Web
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Creating your first "Hello World" document
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Adding data to a document – the dataset
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Modifying the grouping in a document
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Stepping up to dashboards
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Using the editable mode to fine-tune the design
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Adding interactivity with panels and selectors
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Embedding images, HTML, and links
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Switching to Adobe Flash mode
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Dynamic Selection with Filters and Prompts
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Dynamic Selection with Filters and Prompts
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Introduction
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Restricting rows – compare an attribute to another attribute
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Restricting rows – evaluate on moving dates
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Changing the level of a metric filter
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Adding interactivity to filters using prompts
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Using prompts as object selectors
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Mobile BI for Developers
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Mobile BI for Developers
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Introduction
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Setting up the Mobile Server
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Setting up a mobile connection
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Installing and configuring the mobile client
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Adapting content to the iPad screen
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Using mobile views in documents
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Adding panels to mobile documents
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Creating panel selectors
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Adding details with pop-up windows
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Linking from one document to another
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Mobile BI for Users
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Mobile BI for Users
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Introduction
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Answering prompts in reports or documents
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Sorting, drilling, and paging
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Adding notes and sharing
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When things go wrong
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Consolidations, Custom Groups, and Transformations
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Consolidations, Custom Groups, and Transformations
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Introduction
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Creating virtual attributes with consolidations
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Aggregating results with custom groups
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Creating bands on metrics (custom groups banding)
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Month-to-date and year-to-date transformations
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In-Memory Cubes and Visual Insight
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In-Memory Cubes and Visual Insight
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Introduction
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Creating a cube from an existing report
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Building a new cube
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Scheduling data refresh
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Creating reports and documents based on a cube
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Exploring data with Visual Insight
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Using the network visualization
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MicroStrategy Express
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MicroStrategy Express
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Introduction
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Creating an Express account
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Importing Excel data
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Using filters
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Importing cross-tabbed data
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Connecting to a RDBMS
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Refreshing dashboard data
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Sharing a dashboard by e-mail
Solution to Exercises
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Solution to Exercises
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Exercise 1
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Exercise 2
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Exercise 3
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Exercise 4
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Exercise 5
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Exercise 6
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Exercise 7
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Exercise 8
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Exercise 9
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Exercise 10
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Exercise 11
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Exercise 12
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Exercise 13
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Exercise 14
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Exercise 15
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Exercise 16
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Exercise 17
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Exercise 18
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Exercise 19
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Exercise 20
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Exercise 21
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Exercise 22
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Exercise 23
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Exercise 24
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Exercise 25
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Exercise 26
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Exercise 27
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Exercise 28
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Exercise 29
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Exercise 30
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Exercise 31
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Exercise 32
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Exercise 33
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Exercise 34
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Exercise 35
Where to Look for Information
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Where to Look for Information
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Online resources
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Blogs
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Books
Cloudera Hadoop
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Cloudera Hadoop
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Introduction
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Connecting to a Hadoop database
HP Vertica
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HP Vertica
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Introduction
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Connecting to a Vertica database
Index
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Index

Restricting rows – evaluate on moving dates

Dates are at the core of every BI project and possibly the most used filter conditions in reports. The debate about how to deal with date dimensions is as old as the data warehouse business. I personally am a "surrogate key orthodox" in the sense that I would put surrogate keys on everything that moves. Being a reasonable person I also understand that too much is too much. In small databases with modern SSD drives, the point of creating SK for the date dimension has probably less sense. And—yes, I agree—the calendar isn't likely to change in the lifespan of our BI projects... so the Ides of March will always be the same date.

Hence, the debate goes on, having primary keys as integers or as date datatypes. It really matters depending on the software you use to do the reports. And, I should add, on how you feel more comfortable, based on previous projects and the possibility to re-use the creation scripts.

When reusing scripts from previous projects...

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