Setting Azure Analysis Services Server Properties Not Visible In SQL Server Management Studio

Users of on-premises Analysis Services will know that most of the useful server properties can be set in SQL Server Management Studio, some (such as MaxIntermediateRowsetSize) can only be set by editing the msmdsrv.ini file. How do you set these properties in Azure Analysis Services though, when there is no msmdsrv.ini file to edit?

The solution is to use an XMLA script to make the change. The easy way to do this is to open up the server properties dialog in SQL Management Studio by right clicking on your instance name in the Object Explorer and selecting Properties:

Then, in the server properties dialog, change any server property but do not click ok. Instead, click on the Script button and then select Script Action to New Query Window:

This will create a new XMLA query window in SSMS (the connection dialog for this window will be open too, which will freeze the server properties dialog, so you’ll need to either connect or dismiss the dialog to close the server properties dialog) with the XMLA script to make the server properties change you made. The actual change won’t take place, though, unless you execute the script – so don’t do that.

Instead, change the name of the server property in the script to the one you actually want to set and enter the value you want to set it to:

Note that you can’t just enter the name of the server property in most cases because server properties can be grouped into sections, so you’ll need to enter the section names too. For example for the MaxIntermediateRowsetSize property you’ll need to enter DAX\DQ\MaxIntermediateRowsetSize.

After that, all you need to do is hit the Execute button and the change will be made.