Other improvements to Analysis Services 2016 Tabular

There are many other changes to SSAS 2016 apart from those already listed!  This page summarises the main ones (or at least, the one this owl thinks are the most interesting and useful).

Display folders

These were unofficially present in previous versions of SSAS, but seem to be official now.  Here's the sort of effect that you can create:

You can use display folders to group measures into nested groups.

Here's the display folder setting for the Average quantity measure shown above:

This measure will be in a measure group called Sales, and within that in a subgroup called Quantity.

Translations

You can provide translations for names and descriptions of (for example) Excel pivot table columns.  I have to confess that this is not something I'd ever want to do, but here's a sample dialog box for anyone who might:

You can import JSON files containing translations.

Calculated tables

You can now create tables based on the result of a DAX expression.  To start the process off, choose this menu option:

Choose to create a new calculated table.

You can then enter a DAX formula, and Visual Studio will display its results.  Here's an example:

The table shows total quantity sold by geographical quadrant.

This is what the created table looks like:

The final table!

Parallel partition processing

In previous versions of SSAS Tabular, creating partitions was slightly pointless because they were processed in sequence:

Partitions created within the same table using this menu were processed in sequence.

This limitation has now been removed, and single-table partition processing is multi-threaded.

DirectQuery improvements

I could never see the point of DirectQuery, but many of the restrictions that using it entailed have now been lifted.  In particular:

• You can now use DirectQuery on a model containing calculated columns; and
• You are no longer restricted to using SQL Server as a data source.

For a full list of improvements see this Microsoft site.

PowerPivot mode

When you install Analysis Services, there is now an extra mode called PowerPivot Mode:

The new installation mode!

In actual fact this isn't that new at all - it just installs an instance of SSAS Tabular solely to support PowerPivot for SharePoint.

Support for R

When you install SSAS Tabular, you see this dialog box:

The installation software asks you to confirm that you want to install R.

We look forward to teaching R (it's on the list)!