Calculation Group Alternative?

[blynchdata]

We are currently on SQL Server 2016 SSAS Standard, which does not support Calculation Groups. 

We plan to migrate to Power BI Service but until then, are there alternatives to Calculation Groups?

Thank you.

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

The only alternative is to create multiple measures. For example with calculation groups you could create time intelligence items for MTD, QTD and YTD and have a single [Sales] measure. In SSAS 2016 you'd have to create 3 additional measures [Sales MTD], [Sales QTD] and [Sales YTD] 

However my suggestion would be to use Tabular Editor (see tabulareditor.com ) to build out these variations that could otherwise be done with calculation groups. One approach is to create all your base measures in a display folder called something like "Current" then you can then either write a script or create a custom action to add time intelligence variations to all the selected measures. I've used this approach in the past to build out a solution with 10+ time intelligence variations and it works really well.

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

The only alternative is to create multiple measures. For example with calculation groups you could create time intelligence items for MTD, QTD and YTD and have a single [Sales] measure. In SSAS 2016 you'd have to create 3 additional measures [Sales MTD], [Sales QTD] and [Sales YTD] 

However my suggestion would be to use Tabular Editor (see tabulareditor.com ) to build out these variations that could otherwise be done with calculation groups. One approach is to create all your base measures in a display folder called something like "Current" then you can then either write a script or create a custom action to add time intelligence variations to all the selected measures. I've used this approach in the past to build out a solution with 10+ time intelligence variations and it works really well.

[blynchdata · Accepted solution]

This was what I figured, but did not consider the scripting. I use Tabular Editor and am just learning about that scripting capability.

Thank you for affirming that this is the only alternative until later versions / Online Service and pointing the way via scripting out the measures.