With this chapter, we start the advanced part of our BI project. The objects that we will learn in this section are intended to answer specific requirements while developing reports. As far as I'm concerned, I use them occasionally, when no other technique can accomplish the task or when the data warehouse is a complete closed box and there is no way to modify the design of the tables.

Sometimes, especially in large companies or convoluted public institutions, the responsible of the database server is an unreachable entity and trying to persuade the multiple layers of IT decision makers to do a modification in the design it's simply not worth the time.

In those cases, the multiple manipulations that MicroStrategy offers come in very handy to work around Byzantine corporate structures and star schemas carved in stone.

I often like to repeat that there is no single solution to a reporting requirement: depending on the skillset of the programmer, the tools available, and the time allotted to develop, there may be more than one correct path that leads to the desired result. Each of them is more or less elegant, performing, scalable, and comprehensible but as long as the numbers are correct, they're all plausible. Stick to your preferred method; or, in other words, there is no need to use a feature just because it's there. It is nevertheless important to know that the feature exists, so that we can rely on it when we're out of silver bullets.