The query language that clients like Excel PivotTables, including Analyze in Excel, send to Analysis Services models. Because MDX can't aggregate columns implicitly, such clients rely on explicit measures.
Also called Multidimensional Expressions.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains MDX in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- LIKE
Compares strings with a pattern that can contain the % and _ wildcards. Because it only understands character patterns, searching big volumes of text this way is much slower than using full-text search.
- Analyze in Excel
A way to explore a published semantic model from Excel: the service produces a workbook connected live to the model, so PivotTables send MDX queries to it. Users need Build permission on the model.
- Analysis Services
VertiPaq, Microsoft's in-memory analytics engine, sits underneath every Power BI semantic model and is likewise available as Azure Analysis Services or SQL Server Analysis Services. Tools connect to it over XMLA, using its client libraries.
Related terms
- Implicit measure
A summary, such as Sum, Average or Count, that Power BI builds on its own when a column is dropped into a visual. Excel PivotTables and other MDX clients, as well as calculation groups, rely on explicit measures instead, and the Discourage implicit measures setting prevents them.