Question

finding correct data souce in OLAP cube

  • 23 February 2022
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I have very little knowledge in how any of this techy stuff works. 

At my company we have OLAP cubes in microsoft sql server analysis services These are then fed into Power BI.

In Power Bi we have real trouble getting to any transactional data to interrogate, all the reports are set up just to show a GL balance. I’ve requested a drill down option to be able to see the GL lines behind the balance and am being told 

  1. in the cube they can’t find where the data is stored
  2. anything that is being tried is causing the system to run out of memory and crash

I don’t have access to view any kind of mapping that takes place from IFS to the cube but generally speaking how is it done?

There seems to be 1 cube for the whole GL - would this normally be broken down into smaller cubes? e.g. Sales, COGs, Overheads?

In IFS the data I want pulled into Power BI is is stored in “tbwGLQueryVoucherRow2” 

 

Just looking for some advice to see if i’m asking for the equivalent of a unicorn or if being able to get GL transactional data is a standard thing that most companies have.

 

Thanks

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A couple thoughts…

I assume these OLAP cubes are a part of the IFS reporting services, the add-on that uses Microsoft SQL Server for data warehousing and BI operations? If that is the case, and if I am recalling correctly, that is a robustly-priced add-on. Can you or IT resources approach IFS for help? They should support something they charge for and be able to provide documentation.

If what you are looking for are GL Voucher details, have you considered a Quick Report to dump detail lines for a date range? We have several AP/GL Quick Reports where we slice data by Company, date range, code parts, and Suppliers that walks trough the following Views:

Gen_Led_Voucher_Row_Union_Qry
Supplier_Info
Invoice
Payment_Term
Man_Supp_Invoice
Supplier_Check_Transactions

and assembles some fairly useful data (we are not into AR yet, just procurement/AP so far).

Do you think your internal IT resources could create some Quick Reports for you? Being able to generate queries against Oracle is a pretty powerful thing, as there isn’t much Oracle cannot do in that regard. Some of these queries are not particularly speedy (which is why the OLAP cubes exist to persist such information in a faster form), but they get the job done.

If I were you I would see what sort of satisfaction you can get from IFS support and try to get your money’s worth from the existing cubes. But exploring Quick Reports might also get you farther along. You can also point PowerBI directly at Oracle if you want, though performance may be an issue there (again, that is why the OLAP cubes exist, and IFS chose SQL Server for that as “best in breed”).

One other thing: Have you checked out the IFS Business Reporter tool in Excel? I do not know all that much about it, but it might be worth having a partner in to demonstrate it for you, as it is another layer in the realm of business analytics.

 

Thanks,

Joe Kaufman

Just because something is part of a plan doesn't make it right.
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