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Building on the Paremetrised querying above, writing SQL enable's analysts to create additional data from calculations. This will be discussed in further detail in the calculations article however, additive calculations such as case or "if..then..else" logic calculations or, are not ratio calculations will normally be built as a calculation to be executed at run-time which will add to processing time and unnecessary network load, however, by including them in your query, you can materialise the data which can add further benefits in regarding aggregated calculations.
5. Improved OLAP experience
OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) - cubes require their own language to pull data from them; working with OLAP data is discussed in the knowledge base, however for Microsoft SQL Server, users are able to use OLAP data without needing to write MDX expessions and further, to be able to treat OLAP data as flat relational data instead.
This does require a properly configured connection using OpenQuery, and, if you are stuck with the correct MDX to use, the Excel OLAP PivotTable Extensions will certainly help-out here (https://olappivottableextensions.github.io/), code similar to:
| Code Block |
|---|
Select a.* From Openquery(OLAP_Source,'Your MDX Query inside the two quotes')a |
Will return the data from the cube and present it as though the data is relational.