Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

Project 1

In this project you will create an OLAP cube of the Northwind sales database provided by Microsoft Access. You are required to generate

1. Two cuboids from the different tables (dimensions) of the database.
2. Two reports from each cuboid along with their charts that would support the top management decisions.

Installing the Database

To install the database, you need to open Microsoft Access. In the ‘Search for online templates’ field , type ‘Northwind’. It will be automatically located and you can download it.

Once downloaded, explore the database to understand what it is about then close your Microsoft Access.

Creating the Cube

To create the cube, you need a data warehouse tool, i.e. an analysis services software that usually require a license. To ease the process, you can use cube creator tool, called Cube-it Zero. This is not data warehouse tool, it is only an OLAP cube builder based on creating an access query from an external DMBS like MS Access or SQL Server.  To download Cube-it Zero, access the following link:

http://www.bi-lite.com/product/CUBEITZEROEnquiry.aspx

Download the 30 day evaluation version.

Visualizing the Cube

To visualize the cube, you need an OLAP tool. A popular OLAP tool that is already available on your PC is Excel. You need to use the Pivot tables and Pivot charts feature. Cube-it –Zero is already linked with Excel.