Reporting and analyzing data with Intelligent Cubes

You can perform all of your reporting and data analysis within an Intelligent Cube without executing against the data warehouse. Once an Intelligent Cube is created and then published so its data is available, multiple reports can be created to access the Intelligent Cube (see Creating reports that access Intelligent Cubes).

Reporting on a shared Intelligent Cube provides quick access to data as the data has been pre-aggregated. This returns report results much faster than querying the data warehouse. Reporting on Intelligent Cubes also allows you to use all of the OLAP Services features, including derived elements. Derived elements allow you to group attribute elements in a report on-the-fly to provide a new view of report data for analysis and formatting purposes (see About derived elements).

Reports that access an Intelligent Cube are restricted to only the data available within the Intelligent Cube. This ensures that report results are returned quickly, and it also prevents full ROLAP analysis. Report filters, consolidations, and custom groups are not available for reports that access Intelligent Cubes. For a full comparison of personal Intelligent Cubes and Intelligent Cubes, see Deciding when to use personal Intelligent Cubes and Intelligent Cubes.

You need the Define Intelligent Cube Report privilege to create reports that access an Intelligent Cube. This privilege is part of OLAP Services.

While reporting on Intelligent Cubes, a few scenarios can produce unexpected results. To troubleshoot these issues, see the In-memory Analytics Help.

This section discusses the features available for reports that access Intelligent Cubes, and how the reports utilize standard reporting features and OLAP Services features to execute reporting and analysis manipulations completely within the Intelligent Cube. The topics listed below provide information on the small differences in workflows and standards when using standard reporting features in these reports: