SqlASDoc, the Analysis Services Documenter

What is it?

Analysis Services Documenter (SqlASDoc for short) is a tool which creates documentation for your Analysis Services 2005 and Analysis Services 2008 databases. It connects to your live server, and queries the metadata for the name and description which the developers attached to every object (database, cube, dimension, hierarchy, attribute, translation, data source, data source view,...). It then produces an HTML file which contains the name and description of all these objects. But there is more: also other properties, such as last processing time, creation time, sizes of fact tables etc. are written to the HTML file.

Download

You can download this tool here. It is a clickonce application, so the download will automatically install the tool. The tool also regularly checks for updates. Currently, the tool is available for free. However, notice that this software is licensed “as-is.” You bare the risk of using it. U2U gives no express warranties, guarantees or conditions.

Prerequisits

Prerequisits for installing the tool are .Net 2.0 runtime and the AMO (Analysis Management Objects) library for Analysis Services 2008, both freely available from the Microsoft website.

How does it work?

First, install the application, which is simple: It is a clickonce application.

After you run the executable and you accepted the license, you get the above window. In the textbox, type the name of the server which is running Analysis Services, and click Connect. The drop down box shows you the Analysis Servers which are registered in Management Studio. Notice that for production databases, it is adviced to run SqlASDoc on a client machine for performance reasons (every CPU cycle on your server is valuable!). If you get a connection error, check that Analysis Services is running and allows for remote connections. Also, when Analysis Services was not queried yet, it might take some time before the database list appears.

After you clicked Connect, a list of all the Analysis Services databases appear. Select the database for which you would like to generate documentation and hit the Generate documentation button. Your documentation will be generated in the selected location. An example of the generated data on the AdventureWorks sample cube can be found here.

Download

You can install the latest version here (clickonce).

What's new?

Version	Date	Description
0.90	9/11/2006	First public version
0.91	4/12/2006	Added: hyperlinked table of content
1.00	7/8/2007	Added: collapsable HTML
1.1	14/8/2007	Clickonce application, level of detail selection
1.2	10/1/2008	Data mining information added
1.3	19/3/2009	Support for Analysis Services 2008, and KPI and actions added

What does it cost?

Currently, SqlASDoc is available for free. Notice that this software is licensed “as-is.” You bare the risk of using it. U2U gives no express warranties, guarantees or conditions.

Known Issues

The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required.

Error message when you try to install a ClickOnce application that you created in the .NET Framework 2.0 onto a client computer that is configured to use a proxy server: "Proxy authentication required"

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917952/en-us