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Get the Report →Build an OLAP Cube in SSAS from Certinia Data
Establish a connection to Certinia data data from SQL Server Analysis Services, and use the Certinia Data Provider to build OLAP cubes for use in analytics and reporting.
SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) serves as an analytical data engine employed in decision support and business analytics, offering high-level semantic data models for business reports and client applications like Power BI, Excel, Reporting Services reports, and various data visualization tools. When coupled with the CData ADO.NET Provider for Certinia, you gain the capability to generate cubes from Certinia data, facilitating more profound and efficient data analysis.
In this article, we will guide you through the process of developing and deploying a multi-dimensional model of Certinia data by creating an Analysis Services project in Visual Studio. To proceed, ensure that you have an accessible SSAS instance and have installed the ADO.NET Provider.
Creating a Data Source for Certinia
Start by creating a new Analysis Service Multidimensional and Data Mining Project in Visual Studio. Next, create a Data Source for Certinia data in the project.
- In the Solution Explorer, right-click Data Source and select New Data Source.
- Opt to create a data source based on an existing or new connection and click New.
- In the Connection Manager, select CData ADO.NET Provider for Certinia, enter the necessary connection properties, and click Next.
There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Certinia: login credentials, SSO, and OAuth.
Authenticating with a Login and Token
Set the User and Password to your login credentials. Additionally, set the SecurityToken. By default, the SecurityToken is required, but you can make it optional by allowing a range of trusted IP addresses.
To disable the security token:
- Log in to Certinia and enter "Network Access" in the Quick Find box in the setup section.
- Add your IP address to the list of trusted IP addresses.
To obtain the security token:
- Open the personal information page on certinia.com.
- Click the link to reset your security token. The token will be emailed to you.
- Specify the security token in the SecurityToken connection property or append it to the Password.
Authenticating with OAuth
If you do not have access to the user name and password or do not want to require them, use the OAuth user consent flow. See the OAuth section in the Help for an authentication guide.
Connecting to Certinia Sandbox Accounts
Set UseSandbox to true (false by default) to use a Certinia sandbox account. Ensure that you specify a sandbox user name in User.
When you configure the connection, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.
- Set the impersonation method to Inherit and click Next.
- Name the data source (CData Certinia Source) and click Finish.
Creating a Data Source View
After you create the data source, create the data source view.
- In the Solution Explorer, right-click Data Source Views and select New Data Source View.
- Select the data source you just created (CData Certinia Source) and click Next.
- Choose a foreign key match pattern that matches your underlying data source and click Next.
- Select Certinia tables to add to the view and click Next.
- Name the view and click Finish
Based on the foreign key match scheme, relationships in the underlying data will be automatically detected. You can view (and edit) these relationships by double clicking Data Source View.
Note that adding a secondary data source to the Data Source View is not supported. When working with multiple data sources, SSAS requires both sources to support remote queries via OpenRowset which is unavailable in the ADO.NET Provider.
Creating a Cube for Certinia
The last step before you can process the project and deploy Certinia data to SSAS is creating the cubes.
- In the Solution Explorer, right-click Cubes and select New Cube
- Select "Use existing tables" and click Next.
- Select the tables that will be used for measure group tables and click Next.
- Select the measures you want to include in the cube and click Next.
- Select the dimensions to be created, based on the available tables, and click Next.
- Review all of your selections and click Finish.
Process the Project
With the data source, data source view, and cube created, you are ready to deploy the cube to SSAS. To configure the target server and database, right-click the project and select properties. Navigate to deployment and configure the Server and Database properties in the Target section.
After configuring the target server and database, right-click the project and select Process. You may need to build and deploy the project as a part of this step. Once the project is built and deployed, click Run in the Process Database wizard.
Now you have an OLAP cube for Certinia data in your SSAS instance, ready to be analyzed, reported, and viewed. Get started with a free, 30-day trial of the CData ADO.NET Provider for Certinia.