Process SSAS Cube programmatically in C# using Microsoft.AnalysisServices Dll

This post covers information about How to Process SSAS (Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services) Cubes programmatically or dynamically in C#.

I had an opportunity to work on SSAS in one of project in which I had designed Data Warehouse and Cube. Prior to that I had only worked on ASP.NET, MVC and other Web Technologies and SSRS therefore whole process of creating data warehouse and cube then processing cube programmatically was very new and learning experience for me.  For this I did some R&D and search on google so thought good to share the code at one place which I finally used (posts on several sites was really helpful to make this code work)

First you need to know about Microsoft.AnalysisServices.dll

Microsoft.AnalysisServices.dll is an Analysis Management Object API provided by Microsoft, which is used to administer Analysis Services instances. (MSDN Link)

If you have installed SQL server 2008 R2 then you can find this DLL at below path (path can be different as per operating system version and bit type).

you need to reference it in your project. (I have set CopyLocal property to true after referencing it as it will always copy it in output folder)

One you reference it the following code can be used to process the cube dynamically.

First connect to the Server by creating object of Server class and passing connection string to it.

 Server server = new Server();

 server.Connect("Data source=YourSSASServerName;Timeout=7200000;Integrated Security=SSPI");

I have not provided Username and Password in connection string as SSAS automatically gets authenticated by using windows identity of the calling user. Also I have increased timeout to 2 hrs. i.e. 7200000 milliseconds as processing big cube can take more time.

It also has EffectiveUserName property by which you can specilfy the user identity to be used while processing the cube but for that too, the calling user must have rights to SSAS server.

For other details regarding Connection String Properties (Analysis Services) I will recommend to visit here.

Once you connect to server then you need to get database class object as per your database name.

Database database = server.Databases.FindByName("YourCubeDBName");

NOTE: If your dimension data has been changed then you need to process database rather processing cube.

To process database following code can be used

database.Process(ProcessType.ProcessFull);

If you want process specific cube then you need to find it in Cube class object like below

Cube cube = database.Cubes.FindByName("YourCubeName");

Once you get cube object then to process it simply use following code.

cube.Process(ProcessType.ProcessFull);

NOTE: I have used ProcessFull option to process cube fully you can use different options available as per your need.

That’s it! Your cube has been processed and ready to browse.

Hope you have benefited from this code. I have also shared sample project of Process Cube for reference which you can download below.

Download Process Cube in C# Sample Project