RadarCube.VCL for MS AS: overview

The RadarCube OLAP Library provides the VCL programmers with a unique chance to create OLAP clients to MS Analysis 2000 or 2005 using the set of VCL components. The Library is based on 100% VCL-compatible code and greatly exceeds the functionality of the PivotTable and PivotChart ActiveX components being a part of the Office Web Components set.

Key features: Cube definition

• Support of the Microsoft Analysis Server 2000 or 2005 (2005 recommended).
• Support of all cube structure elements of MS AS 2005 (dimensions, hierarchies, hierarchy groups, measure groups, hierarchy levels and hierarchy attributes)
• Support of hierarchies of four types:
  • Attribute hierarchies;
  • Parent-child hierarchies;
  • Multilevel hierarchies;
  • Mixed from both previous types.
• An ability to create additional calculated measures on the client or server side, using both the information from the fact table and values of the aggregated cube cells.
• Support of additional calculated members of hierarchies on the client or server side.

Key features: Data visualization

• Unicode support
• An ability to display many measures in the Grid simultaneously.
• Interactive drill-down support of all types of hierarchies separately for every grid cell.
• Support of "Undo" and "Redo" actions during the OLAP analysis.
• Support of saving and restoring the current OLAP slice.
• Support of member grouping on any hierarchy level without changing the hierarchy levels structure.
• Support of sorting on any level of hierarchy or dimension separately. Ability of overriding any sorting method.
• Support of ascending or descending sorting based on any column value in the OLAP grid.
• Support of filtering any set of hierarchy members with or without applying these filters in the OLAP calculations.
• Support of the auto filtering of the hierarchy members depending on their values in the grid. An ability for selection some major/minor members, either according to their rank or on the Pareto principle.
• An ability to display in the grid not only the values of the measures but a percent value regarding totals, subtotals, or grand totals. An ability to create your own context-sensitive rules on measure display (for example, a cumulative sum of measure values for time dimensions, and just its value for all other cases).
• The auto image drawing in any grid cell, the auto picture positioning in a cell, depending on the parameters assigned by a programmer.
• A complete data output control, a feature for the arbitrary drawing in the grid cells.
• Support of the custom drawing on the grid cells.
• Support of the custom popup menus in the grid.
• Support of the drag-n-drop of measures or hierarchy members within the grid.
• Auto wrapping of the cell contents depending on its width. Auto sizing of the column width with auto wrapping for the very "long" cells of the grid.
• An ability to edit OLAP data directly in the grid ("writeback" support).
• Allows to display the current slice as a diagram (any TChart successor). Support of Drill-down actions in the chart. The source code of the charting component comes for free.
• Allows to copy the selected grid area into the clipboard. Support all common office clipboard formats.
• Allows to export grid data to many formats: MS Excel (using OLE or directly to XLS-file), HTML, PDF, WMF, RTF, TXT, BMP, XML. Exports to the RaveReport, ReportBuilder, FastReport are coming soon. Also supports direct drawing on printer Canvas.
• Easy localization. It is possible to localize the evaluation version as well.

Requirements for the developer

• Borland Delphi 6, 7, 2005 or 2006 versions.
• Windows NT/2000/XP/2003
• GDI+ (for Windows NT/2000 users)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services 9.0 OLE DB Provider (for RadarCube for MS AS)
• 256MB memory or more (512MB recommended)

Requirements for the end user

• Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003
• GDI+ (for Windows 98/NT/2000 users)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services 9.0 OLE DB Provider (for RadarCube for MS AS)
• 256MB memory or more (512MB recommended)

Why RadarCube?

The events models and the data access ideology in the Desktop version are initially compatible with the future RadarCube.NET version, that is why if you are planning to port the own code on the NET Framework platform, then, while transferring RadarCube, you will not have problems.

RadarCube is a constructor - a big and pretty complex toy. In RadarCube, you can tune everything. You can use it in the simplest mode of the flat hierarchies by disabling the features of grouping and filtering, and nothing will differ from the simplest OLAP components. You can intercept the dialog windows by replacing them with your own. You can intercept the procedures of the context menu generation, cell drawing in the grid or the hierarchy panels, use any font, paint them in any colors, and in general, output the things you need on the screen.

If, along with the ordinary dimension members you need additional members, for example, for intermediate totals, that's not a problem! You can add them. You can use both the standard features of the MS AS server creating new measures or members using the MDX expressions and creating new members and measures by calculating their values on the clientÒs side. Thus, RadarCube allows you to write multiple OLAP projects absolutely having no knowledge of the MDX language.

You need grouping, sorting, multiple filtering? It's easy! Do you need to get a value of any cube cell at any measures in order to later use the data in your own calculations? A single function will do it for you.

We, the team of the RadarCube developers, are happy to realize that our library sets new standards for the developers of the VCL OLAP applications, and giving to the developers of the OLAP applications new great perspectives! We are glad to stay with you. Good luck!

Related links

Download evaluation version

Download MS Analysis demo

RadarCube.VCL Desktop version

License agreement

Version history

Screenshots

The groups in RadarCube can be created either programmatically or by end users in run time. Other hierarchy members can be put into group ether dragging the members to, or by commands in the context menu

Th client-side "Measure show modes" offer to a programmer extremely flexible technique of processing data after aggregation. For example, the "cumulative sum" mode which you can see on the figure, works only for definite measures and hierarchies "date-time" in whatever cube slice. It doesn't depend on sorting or filtering methods. This mode is produced with only 20 lines of code

Where it is appropriate, hierarchical levels are tabulated in the grid with the indents. This allows to spare the useful screen space, and takes users back to the tree-like hierarchy look they may be used to

Client-side calculated members is an indispensable tool for those who want to show in the OLAP-report much more than just aggregated data of the database tables. In the current screenshot two calculated members are used: "Forecasted 2005" which calculates values of future sales by the approximation method, and "Degree of trend" which visually demonstrates sales rates of growth from year to year. No MDX is used.