If you want to get the most out of your Analysis Services cube it’s essential to know and understand MDX: you need it to be able to write queries and calculations, and also to be able to use more advanced featuressuch as cell security. This one-day seminar, aimed at those with little or noprevious MDX experience, will teach you the basic concepts of the language aswell as show you how to write common queries and calculations.  The agendafor the day is as follows:

9:00        Welcome and Introduction

9:30        What is MDX and why do I need it? A session explaining where the MDX language comesfrom, which products use it, why it’s different from SQL and why you should learn it.

10:00     Fundamental MDX Concepts.This will describe the three most important objects you’ll encounter in MDX: the member, the tuple and the set. Understanding what they are and how to use them is the key to learning MDX

11:00     Break

11:15     Simple MDX Queries. In this section you’ll learn how to write simple MDX SELECT statements, and in the process you’ll gain a better understanding of members, tuples and sets.

12:30     Lunch

13:30     Simple MDX Calculations.This section will show you how to write calculated members in MDX that solvecertain basic business problems.

14:30     Useful MDX Functions. Herewe’ll discuss a number of useful MDX functions that return sets, members and numeric values, which we’ll need to be able to use when writing calculations.

15:30     Break

15:45     Putting It All Together. In the final session of the day you’ll see how everything we’ve learned can beused to implement 90% of all of the calculations you’ll ever need on a cube.We’ll go into detail on how to tackle certain common MDX calculations, such as‘previous period growths’ and ‘market shares’.

17:00     Close

The seminar will be taught by Chris Webb of Crossjoin Consulting Limited (http://www.crossjoin.co.uk).Chris is an independent consultant specialising in Analysis Servicesperformance tuning, troubleshooting, design and complex MDX; he’s also a SQL Server MVP, co-author of the books “MDX Solutions” and "Expert Cube Development with SQL 2008 Analysis Services" and a well-known Analysis Services blogger (http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/).He has been running MDX training courses for companies worldwide (including Microsoft) for several years.