Problem:

How do create a measure that does an average over a field from fact table? You can’t find it the “usage” property while trying to create a new measure:

Solution:

Before i show you the solution, I want you to know that this is a Level 100 solution to get you started – so depending on the complexity of your cube the calculated measure that you are about to create may or may not perform well – if it does not perform well, you might have to dig a little deeper and here’s one blog post to get you started: URL

OK, back to topic! Here are the steps.

SCENARIO: you need average of Sales Amount.

1. Create a SUM OF SALES AMOUNT measure

Steps: Open cube > Cube Structure > Right click on Measure Group > New Measure > Usage: “SUM” > Source Table: Pick your Fact Table. In this case let’s say it’s Fact Sales > Source Column: In this case, lets say it’s SALES AMOUNT

2. Create a COUNT OF SALES measure (important: row count vs. non empty count – this is not a developer’s choice, a business user needs to define that)

Steps: Open cube > Cube Structure > Right click on Measure Group > New Measure > Usage: count of rows OR count of non empty values (again this is not developer’s choice, a business user needs to define this) > Source Table: Pick your Fact Table. In this case let’s say it’s Fact Sales > Source Column: In this case, lets say it’s SALES AMOUNT

3. Create a Calculated Measure that equals (SUM OF SALES/COUNT OF SALES)

3a. Switch to Calculations section > create a new calculated member:

3b. Complete Name, Format String & Associated Measure Group. For the Expression, use the following expression. Please use this as a starting point for your measure:

[code language=”SQL”]
IIF([measures].[COUNT OF SALES]=0,0,[measures].[SUM OF SALES AMOUNT]/[measures].[COUNT OF SALES])
[/code]

4. Before you test it, if you don’t need the SUM OF SALES AMOUNT and COUNT OF SALES measures than don’t forget to hide them!

Conclusion:

In this post, you saw how to define a measure with average aggregation is SSAS.