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The OLAP Module Defined

A cube is a data structure that aggregates data by the levels and hierarchies of each of the dimensions that you wish to analyse.  Cubes combine several dimensions, such as time, geography, and product lines with summarised data, such as sales or inventory figures.

Cubes are not “cubes” in the strictly mathematical sense because they do not necessarily have equal sides.

The OLAP Module is an additional module that functions between the Sage Intelligence Reporting Connector Module and the Sage Intelligence Reporting Report Manager module. The purpose of the OLAP Module is to use an existing connection to a database provided by the Sage Intelligence Reporting Connector to access data and create an offline .cub file. This .cub file is then in turn used by the Sage Intelligence Reporting Report Manager module to create reports and finally Microsoft Excel is used to browse this cube data and create an output that can be linked to Sage Intelligence Reporting and refreshed as and when required.

In short, the use of the Sage Intelligence Reporting modules for data analysis purposes is summarised in sequential order as follows:

Sage Intelligence Reporting Connector Module	Connects to the underlying database and publishes metadata from source data
OLAP Module	Creates a .cub file off the metadata made available by the Sage 300 ERP Connector Module
Sage Intelligence Reporting Report Manager Module	Creates a report of the .cub file established by the OLAP Module
Microsoft Excel	Used as the browser interface to analyse the data in the report created by the OLAP Module
Create and Link Template	When a final layout is concluded the normal “Create and link” function within Sage Intelligence Reporting Report Manager is used to create a template of the final analysis output in Microsoft Excel