In this two-part article, we build a simple cube to meet some illustrative business requirements of a hypothetical corporate financial reporting function. We will expand upon many of the concepts we introduced in earlier lessons, where we used virtual cubes to merge the two into a single reporting "view," then we will discuss some of the challenges that accompany cube design for financial reporting, and explore an alternative approach to "merging" cubes.

In this, the second half of a two-part article, we will:

• Develop our core cube further, bringing in sales / revenue and other information to make the Profit / Loss position of the organization complete for basic financial reporting purposes;
• Explore and practice the use of a UNION ALL query to prepare a "virtual" fact table for more effective cube creation;
• Discuss rollup and aggregation concepts and considerations;
• Explore "merging" cubes using Custom Members;
• Introduce methods of sign and data type control within our presentation;
• Address formatting and other considerations that arise as we create a cube to meet the needs of our information consumers.

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About the Series:

This article is a member of the series Introduction to MSSQL Server 2000 Analysis Services. The series is designed to provide hands-on application of the fundamentals of MS SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services, with each installment progressively adding features and techniques designed to meet specific real - world needs. For more information on the series, as well as the hardware / software requirements to prepare for the exercises we will undertake, please see my initial article, Creating Our First Cube.

Analysis Services, Financial Reporting, Profit and Loss, Calculated Members, Income Statement, Rollup Analysis Services, Financial Reporting, Profit and Loss, Calculated Members, Income Statement, Rollup, Aggregation, Sign Control, Footnote, Format, Sales, Revenue, UNION ALL, Virtual, Custom Members, Data Type

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