March MDX Puzzle Solution Revealed - 21 Mar 2001

Using the FoodMart 2000 Sales cube, write a query that shows Unit Sales for each drink product department for each quarter of 1997. Use cell properties to highlight in red the Unit Sales values that dropped from the previous quarter.

The solution, which Listing A shows, uses a calculated cell that applies to all Unit Sales values where the previous time value is greater than the current time value. If the values meet this condition, Analysis Services changes the FORE_COLOR cell property to red. The query uses the CELL PROPERTIES keywords to request that the FORE_COLOR property be returned with the query result.