Just come across this new tool for documenting SQL Server and Analysis Services 2005 databases called BI Documenter:
A touch pricey perhaps, but looks quite slick and has some good features.
BI Documenter
Published
Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Analysis Services, DAX, M, MDX, Power Query, Power Pivot and Excel
Hi Chris,
compared with the time and effords I would have to spend to develope this I think it is good price.
But being a "real" BI Documenter would also mean to include SSIS and dependencies like the Metadata Toolkit you referenced here:
http://cwebbbi.spaces.msn.com/Blog/cns!1pi7ETChsJ1un_2s41jm9Iyg!444.entry
My personal conclusion is that this is a nice solution but only could be the first step…
Have you thought of doing a kind of this one on your own to get rid of documentation issues?
🙂
Cheers
Markus
Well, I suppose you\’re right – it isn\’t that expensive when you consider the amount of time it would take to develop something like this. I certainly don\’t have the time (or dev skills) to put together something like this. I keep thinking back to OLAP Scribe for AS2K which, although it didn\’t have many of the features of BI Documenter, was at least free.
Not to sound sour or anything, but who really needs this? If you absolutely HAVE to paper document your SSAS solution a little XSLT on the XML definition will go a long way. I can\’t really see who this product is for. The technical people? (I get all my tech metadata through BIDS) The business users? (Zero interest in 99% of the content). Now what i really would be impressed with was a system ala Wikipedia connected with SSAS where business users could query for meaningful metdata such as "How is measure X calculated?" and "What data do we have on customers?" or "How do i connect to SSAS through Excel?". The system should get as much metadata from SSAS as possible (dimensions, hierarchies, claculated members, interdependencies, scripts) and let an administrator or data steward flesh out the details presented to the business users.
I know I am very late to the party, but I totally agree