Getting Data Structure Changes to show up in Dashboard Designer

If you find you are working with Dashboard Designer and Sharepoint 2010 and you have made some changes to the backend (ive tested with cubes/tables), they will not automatically appear consistently in DD. For example if you have a SQL Server table source and add some columns, when you preview the data the new columns will show up, however they wont appear as new “Dimension” items for use in scorecards for example.

The trick here is to edit the data source and re-pick your database and table/cube. This forces DD to re-evaluate the source and fetch new metadata. Fortunately you wont have to remap your Time Intelligence!

Locating SQL Server Samples

When trying to get SQL Server samples from codeplex you may wonder where they all go. This is something i keep coming across as it is not something one does often. So here is quick guide to where to find them once installed.

Assuming you installed all the SQL server samples available, you will notice that after installing samples you will have a Start menu shortcut leading to:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Samples

Here you will find the Adventurworks online/offline reports and other SSIS/SSAS samples.

However, if you install the Adventureworks OLTP, DW, and OLAP databases (usually if you are working with B.I.) you need to find the location of some projects in order to deploy. Now you need to look in the Toosl folder i.e.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Samples

i have assumed a default SQL installation directory on drive C.