What's New in the SAS 9.3 OLAP Server

The Cube Designer wizard is used to create new cube definitions and edit existing cube definitions in SAS OLAP Cube Studio. It has been redesigned to make navigating the wizard and editing a cube easier. The pages of the wizard have been modified and reduced in number to simplify the cube building and editing process. You can now make changes to an existing cube without following a sequential order in the wizard. The Next button displays the available pages in a drop-down menu. You can go to the next page of the Cube Designer wizard or select a specific page in the wizard. This enables you to bypass pages that you do not need to edit. The Finish button is also now available from most pages in the wizard. You can now save the cube definition and, if desired, build the cube from most pages in the wizard.

Multilingual cubes show member information in the language of the query session. Now, your multilingual cubes can also return captions and drill-through data in the language of the query session.

You provide language-specific captions for multilingual cubes in one or more caption tables. Caption tables must be registered with the metadata server. The naming convention for the caption tables follows the same convention as that of translated dimension tables. Each table, except for the default language, is suffixed with the five-character locale code.

In SAS OLAP Cube Studio, you can select a primary drill-through table. Additional tables for each language must also be registered in metadata, but you do not need to select them.

A SAS shared dimension provides a common dimension that is created and updated in one location and is automatically reflected across all cubes that use the dimension. In SAS OLAP Cube Studio, the Shared Dimension Designer wizard enables you to create and edit a shared dimension. This common dimension is created and updated in one place and is automatically reflected across all cubes that use the dimension. After you have created a shared dimension, you can select the dimension for use in a new or existing cube. SAS OLAP Cube Studio enables you to define, update, and use a shared dimension in a cube. After you have created a shared dimension, you can edit the structure of the shared dimension and perform various updates and changes to the shared dimension.

When you query SAS OLAP cubes, a default member is used to subset a dimension if that dimension is not on the rows or columns of a report. When a SAS OLAP cube is built, the ALL member is the default. You can now assign a different default member at the start of query sessions. The new default member is specified in PROC OLAP using the DEFAULT_MEMBER option on the HEIRARCHY statement. In SAS OLAP Cube Studio, set the Default Member option using the Quick Edit dialog box.

The Linguistic Sorting function enables you to select locale and collate options for SAS OLAP cubes that use a single language. The Linguistic Sorting tab is available on the General page of the Cube Designer wizard in SAS OLAP Cube Studio.

When updating a cube, you might need to add or change members for the cube. As a result, a level might run out of space for new level members after multiple cube update events. This occurs when new level members have been added to the same sorted location for each event. If too many new level members are inserted into the same sort location, this can result in structural errors in the cube and can cause the cube update to fail. At this point, you must reorganize the sort locations for members for the particular level that failed, or choose to reorganize all levels for the cube. The Reorganize function can be used with a cube that has been incrementally updated. This function reorganizes the levels in a cube, making room for more members. The Reorganize function is accessed from the Incremental Update sub-menu.

The Cube Options tab displays the currently selected drill-through table for a cube and enables you to select a new drill-through table for the cube if needed. You can apply the new drill-through table to the cube without rebuilding the cube. The Cube Options tab can be accessed from the Quick Edit dialog box in SAS OLAP Cube Studio.

In SAS OLAP Cube Studio, you can select whether to include calculated members in the distinct count of a measure for a cube. You can include or exclude calculated members for a measure. You can apply the updated distinct count setting to the cube without rebuilding the cube. The Distinct Count Options tab can be accessed from the Quick Edit dialog box in SAS OLAP Cube Studio

The following OLAP Procedure options are new for the SAS 9.3 OLAP Server.

New PROC OLAP statement:

New PROC OLAP statement options:

New DIMENSION statement options:

The MLSID option is also new for the HIERARCHY, LEVEL, MEASURE, and PROPERTY statements. Additionally, the ALL_MLSID option on the HIERARCHY statement enables you to specify the ID that relates to the ALL member caption. An MLSID can also be specified in the DEFINE statement to allow for language-specific captions on your global calculated measure or member.