Perspective Representation (Tabular)

A perspective is a mechanism to simplify or focus the model into a smaller portion of it for the client application.

See Perspective Representation (Tabular) for a detailed explanation on how to create and manipulate the perspective representation.

Perspective Representation

In terms of AMO objects a perspective representation has a one to one mapping relationship with Perspective and no other main AMO objects are required.

Perspective in AMO

The following code snippet shows how to create a perspective in a Tabular model. The key element in this piece of code is the perspectiveElements; this object is a graphical representation of all the objects in the tabular model that are exposed to the user. perspectiveElements contains 4 columns and for this scenario only columns 1, 2 and 3 are relevant. Column 1 contains the type of element displayed -elementTypeValue-; column 2 contains the complete name of the element --, that probably will need to parsed to enter the element in the perspective; column 3 contains a checkbox item -checkedElement- that tells if the element is part of the perspective or not.

        private void updatePerspective_Click(
                             AMO.Cube modelCube
                          ,  DataGridView perspectiveElements
                          ,  string updatedPerspectiveID
                     )
        {
            //Update is done by delete first, create new and insert after
            //if perspective doesn't exist then create first and insert after
            updatedPerspectiveID = updatedPerspectiveID.Trim();
            if (modelCube.Perspectives.Contains(updatedPerspectiveID))
            {
                modelCube.Perspectives.Remove(updatedPerspectiveID, true);
                newDatabase.Update(AMO.UpdateOptions.ExpandFull, AMO.UpdateMode.UpdateOrCreate);
            }
            AMO.Perspective currentPerspective = modelCube.Perspectives.Add(updatedPerspectiveID, updatedPerspectiveID);

            foreach (DataGridViewRow currentDGVRow in perspectiveElements.Rows)
            {
                bool checkedElement = (bool)currentDGVRow.Cells[3].Value;
                if (checkedElement)
                {
                    string elementTypeValue = currentDGVRow.Cells[1].Value.ToString();
                    string elementNameValue = currentDGVRow.Cells[2].Value.ToString();
                    switch (elementTypeValue)
                    {
                        case "Column: Attribute":
                        case "Column: Calculated Column":
                            {
                                string perspectiveDimensionName = Regex.Match(elementNameValue, @"(?<=')(.*?)(?=')").ToString();
                                string perspectiveDimensionAttributeName = Regex.Match(elementNameValue, @"(?<=\[)(.*?)(?=\])").ToString();
                                AMO.PerspectiveDimension currentPerspectiveDimension;
                                if (!currentPerspective.Dimensions.Contains(perspectiveDimensionName))
                                {
                                    currentPerspectiveDimension = currentPerspective.Dimensions.Add(perspectiveDimensionName);
                                }
                                else
                                {
                                    currentPerspectiveDimension = currentPerspective.Dimensions[perspectiveDimensionName];
                                }
                                if (!currentPerspectiveDimension.Attributes.Contains(perspectiveDimensionAttributeName))
                                {
                                    currentPerspectiveDimension.Attributes.Add(perspectiveDimensionAttributeName);
                                }
                            }
                            break;
                        case "Hierarchy":
                            {
                                string perspectiveDimensionName = Regex.Match(elementNameValue, @"(?<=')(.*?)(?=')").ToString();
                                string perspectiveDimensionHierarchyName = Regex.Match(elementNameValue, @"(?<=\[)(.*?)(?=\])").ToString();
                                AMO.PerspectiveDimension currentPerspectiveDimension;
                                if (!currentPerspective.Dimensions.Contains(perspectiveDimensionName))
                                {
                                    currentPerspectiveDimension = currentPerspective.Dimensions.Add(perspectiveDimensionName);
                                }
                                else
                                {
                                    currentPerspectiveDimension = currentPerspective.Dimensions[perspectiveDimensionName];
                                }
                                if (!currentPerspectiveDimension.Hierarchies.Contains(perspectiveDimensionHierarchyName))
                                {
                                    currentPerspectiveDimension.Hierarchies.Add(perspectiveDimensionHierarchyName);
                                }
                            }
                            break;
                        case "Measure":
                            {
                                string perspectiveMeasureGroupName = Regex.Match(elementNameValue, @"(?<=')(.*?)(?=')").ToString();
                                string measureName = Regex.Match(elementNameValue, @"(?<=\[)(.*?)(?=\])").ToString();
                                string perspectiveMeasureName = string.Format("[Measures].[{0}]", measureName);
                                AMO.PerspectiveCalculation currentPerspectiveCalculation = new AMO.PerspectiveCalculation(perspectiveMeasureName, AMO.PerspectiveCalculationType.Member);
                                if (!currentPerspective.Calculations.Contains(perspectiveMeasureName))
                                {
                                    currentPerspective.Calculations.Add(currentPerspectiveCalculation);
                                }
                                if (modelCube.MdxScripts["MdxScript"].CalculationProperties.Contains(string.Format("KPIs.[{0}]", measureName)))
                                {//Current Measure is also a KPI ==> will be added to the KPIs collection of the perspective
                                    AMO.PerspectiveKpi currentPerspectiveKpi = new AMO.PerspectiveKpi(perspectiveMeasureName);
                                    if (!currentPerspective.Kpis.Contains(perspectiveMeasureName))
                                    {
                                        currentPerspective.Kpis.Add(currentPerspectiveKpi);
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                            break;
                        default:
                            break;
                    }
                }
            }

            newDatabase.Update(AMO.UpdateOptions.ExpandFull, AMO.UpdateMode.CreateOrReplace);
            MessageBox.Show(String.Format("Perpective successfully updated."), "AMO to Tabular message", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information);
        }

AMO2Tabular sample

However, to have an understanding on how to use AMO to create and manipulate perspective representations see the source code of the AMO to Tabular sample. The sample is available at Codeplex. An important note about the code: the code is provided only as a support to the logical concepts explained here and should not be used in a production environment; nor should it be used for other purpose other than the pedagogical one.