Logi OLAP

Logi Analytics' zero-footprint Logi OLAP reporting components brings the power of OLAP analysis to your users. This topic contains basic information about requirements for using it.

• About OLAP
• MDX Query Support
• MS Analysis Services 2000/2005/2008

About OLAP

OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) is an approach to quickly providing answers to analytical queries that are dimensional in nature. Typical applications of OLAP are in business reporting for sales, marketing, management reporting, business process management, budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting, and similar areas. Some organizations deal with massive numbers of database records and, in order to optimize their data for analysis, keep pre-calculated data in multi-dimensional OLAP "cubes" to get faster answers to critical business questions.

Logi Analytics' zero-footprint OLAP elements make using OLAP analysis easy, by allowing your users to quickly make sense of corporate data so they can get immediate answers to their "why" questions.

Logi OLAP elements provide a front-end tools that are integrated with Logi managed reporting products and can be used to query, analyze, and display data from OLAP cubes created with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

Work with Logi XOLAP Data

In v10.0.31, we introduced Logi XOLAP technology, which brings the analytical power of data cubes to your relational data and data from other diverse sources such as web services and files. XOLAP is similar to OLAP but doesn't rely on an OLAP data cube. Our OLAP Grid and OLAP Table elements are able, however, to use data from a Logi XOLAP cube. For more information, see Logi XOLAP.

 Restrictions

Please note that Logi OLAP only communicates with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services; it does not support other cubes. And only the OLAP Table element is available in Logi Report; it does not include the more versatile OLAP Grid super-element.

MDX Query Support

OLAP cube data is returned to requesting applications after submission of an MDX query and Logi OLAP elements use this type of query to retrieve multi-dimensional data for manipulation and display.

In Microsoft SQL Server 2005, some small changes were made to the MDX query syntax dealing with sorting. These changes carried thru to SQL Server 2008.

As a result, Logi's OLAP Grid tool works fine with SSAS 2005 & 2008 but, if multiple, nested dimensions appear in the X-axis, sorting of lower-level dimensions may not refresh correctly.
 

Use Two-Dimensional Data

In addition, it is possible to use an MDX query, with DataLayer.SQL and Connection.OLEDB, to retrieve two-dimensional data from MS SQL Server Analysis Services OLAP cubes for use in data tables and other elements. This allows cubes to be the source of data for a variety of applications, including those that are not strictly OLAP-related. However, the data retrieved into the datalayer from such a query includes special identifiers and formatting.

In v11.0.519+, datalayers, charts, tables, and other elements were modified to handle the results of an MDX query directly.

For product versions prior to v11.0.519, a special plug-in that "grooms" the data by replacing the special identifiers and formatting, is necessary to handle the results. We offer such a plug-in on our Plug-in Samples page on DevNet. Here's an example of the elements used for this purpose:
 

If possible, use the approach shown above: retrieve the data as Local Data, apply the plug-in to it, then make it available using linked datalayers. This will ensure that all extraneous data identifiers and formatting (spaces, square brackets, etc.) are removed before the data is presented to your data table, chart, etc.

Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2000/2005/2008

To use Logi OLAP reporting with Microsoft SQL Server, the optional Analysis Services (SSAS) component must be part of the SQL Server installation. For optimal performance, SSAS and Logi Info Server should be running on separate computers. Other DevNet documents about Logi OLAP Reporting reference the "Adventure Works Data Warehouse Standard Edition" test database which is included with the installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. The database is not installed by default; instructions for installing it can be found here.

Information about connecting to SSAS is available in Connect to MS SQL Server Analysis Services.