Automate SSAS tabular model refresh in the table level

Question

I am trying to automate SSAS tabular model refresh. The requirement is - depending on the tables chosen, the model will be refreshed only for those tables. I am looking for a way to dynamically build the script to process only the selected tables in the first step of an SQL agent job and pass that dynamically built script to next step which will be SQL Server Analysis Services Command step. Or maybe execute the script built in step 1 itself. But I am not sure how could this be achieved. Please let me know the possible ways.

Answer 1

Have you considered doing this through SSIS and executing the package from SQL Agent? You can use an Analysis Services Processing Task and select the tables that you want to process. If you want to do this in a more dynamic manner, the follow items outline how this can be done.

• The table names that you want to process will be stored in an object variable. One option for this is to query an SSAS DMV from an Execute SQL Task for the names of that tables that will be processed and output these names into an object variable. You'll need to set the Result Set to use a full result set and map the object variable in the Result Set pane. The following command will return the unique table names (table_type filter is used to remove results prefixed with $) select table_name from $SYSTEM.DBSCHEMA_TABLES where table_catalog = 'YourTabularModel' and table_schema = 'Model' and table_type = 'SYSTEM TABLE'
• If you will be using SSAS DMVs then create an OLE DB connection manager using Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Analysis Services 13.0 as the provider. Make sure to set the initial catalog to the SSAS model with the tables that will be processed.
• Add a Foreach ADO Enumerator Loop that will use the object variable as the source variable in the Collection pane. In the Variable Mappings pane, add a variable to store the table name.
• Inside the Foreach Loop, add an Analysis Services Execute DDL Task.
• Create a string variable with an expression that is the SSAS process command for the table. In the expression replace the table field (assuming you're using TMSL) with the variable holding the table name.