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SQL Server

  • Data Warehouse Presentation

    February 23rd, 2010 in Blog, SQL Server

    Purple Frog is presenting a session on data warehouse design concepts at the South Wales SQL Server User Group on Thursday 25th February 2010. If you’re in the area and want to come along you can register for free here. Eversheds are hosting the event in their Cardiff office. Adam Morton will be demonstrating an ETL control framework in SSIS, and Alex Whittles will be discussing the concepts of data warehousing and the fundamental…

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  • Dynamic MDX in Reporting Services

    September 18th, 2008 in Analysis Services, Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    After a couple of days off work last week with SQL Bits III and SQL 2008 Unleashed, it’s back to the grindstone this week; however before I get onto the serious stuff I’d like to say thank you to the organisers of both events. Watching you on stage headbanging to Rockstar – legendary! (You can see for yourself here and here…). Anyway, back to MDX… This post explains how you can build a dynamic MDX query in Reportins…

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  • SQLBits III and more…

    September 2nd, 2008 in Blog, SQL Server

    Next week we’re lucky enough to have a double-whammy of SQL events in the UK, has Christmas come early?… On Wednesday 10th September, Microsoft are running a live Technet event, SQL Server 2008 Unleashed, at their Reading campus. It looks like it should be a day well spent, with Prem Mehra delivering a keynote speech on large scale SQL Server systems, and other sessions including data warehouse improvements, upgrade paths, and a…

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  • Use Stored Procedure Output Parameters in SSRS

    August 5th, 2008 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    It’s commonly known that there are a few frustrations when using stored procedures as the source for SSRS 2005 datasets, the inability to cope with temporary tables is always a key one, another is not being able to get at output parameters or return values. This post explains the easiest way to get at the output parameters and return value. Lets assume you are using the following stored proc: IF OBJECT_ID('myProc') IS NOT NULL DROP…

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  • SSRS Report Performance monitoring

    May 14th, 2008 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    Today’s Frog-Blog top-tips are quite simple ones, but ones that I always find very useful. SSRS Report Performance monitoring. Once you start to build up a few Reporting Services reports, you need to find out how they’re performing, whether any particular reports are causing the server problems and even which users are running which reports. The following set of queries should point you in the right direction. They should all be run…

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  • Semi Additive Measures using SQL Server Standard

    April 21st, 2008 in Analysis Services, Blog, SQL Server

    One of the most frustrating limitations of SQL Server 2005 Standard edition is that it doesn’t support semi additive measures in SSAS Analysis Services cubes. This post explains a work around that provides similar functionality without having to shell out for the Enterprise Edition. What Are Semi Additive Measures? Semi Additive measures are values that you can summarise across any related dimension except time. For example, Sales and…

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  • Extract Datasource and Query from Excel Pivot

    January 23rd, 2008 in Analysis Services, Blog, SQL Server

    Have you ever tried to reverse engineer an Excel pivot table? It’s not as easy as you would think! Whether you just want to find out the datasource details, or identify the query that was used, there is just no simple way of getting Excel to tell you. The macro below will loop through every sheet in a workbook, and will document the datasources, SQL or MDX queries as well as the page, row, column and data fields. To use it, add it into…

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  • Report Parameter Selection Memory

    January 11th, 2008 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    This post explains a method of enhancing Reporting Services reports to make them more user friendly. I have been quizzed many times by end users who want reports to remember the parameter selections so that next time they run the report they haven’t got to re-select the same parameters. This is especially useful if there are a lot of long parameter lists, and each user tends to run the same selection frequently. This process is made…

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  • Open SSRS report in a new Window

    December 20th, 2007 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    There isn’t yet a built-in facility within Reporting Services to open a report link (i.e. a drillthrough report) in a new browser window or tab, however it isn’t too tricky to get this to work using a bit of javascript. javascript:void(window.open(Destination,’_blank’)) My preferred method is to wrap this up into a custom code function such as Function OpenURL(ByVal URL As String) As String Return…

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  • Excel Addin for Analysis Services

    December 15th, 2007 in Analysis Services, Blog, SQL Server

    For any users of Analysis Services, if you haven’t already downloaded the Excel (2002/2003) addin you’re missing out. It’s a free download from Microsoft which significantly expands Excel’s cube querying ability. Well recommended! Get it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DAE82128-9F21-475D-88A4-4B6E6C069FF0&displaylang=en [Update 31 Aug 2023: Microsoft have now removed this download –…

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