Tableau, SSAS and MDX

Question

We have a Tableau dashboard that consist of 4 worksheets. The datasource is a SSAS and there's some calculated members (MDX) and a parameter (measure selector) used in the worksheets.

Placing the worksheets in a dashboard and running SQL Profiler or Interworks Tableau Performance Analyzer we've noticed that Tableau is generating one large MDX query to the cube. This large query is sent, not only once, but for every single worksheet.

Is this by design or anyone have any ideas how to get around this to improve performance?

Answer 1

This is by design on Tableau's end. The MDX are sent for each worksheet, data is processed and then rendered. Usually, one would expect that the data once retrieved could be used for the other worksheets.

In simple terms, each of the worksheet is designed with different members on the axes which triggers new MDX requests. This gets even more difficult with many parameters/filters along with the dashboard.

The last time I had spoken to Tableau, it was in version 8.1. They said it might be resolved in future releases.