By Thomas Bolt on 8/12/2009 3:27 PM

While installing the August CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 I recognized a new dialog in the setup-wizard.

This dialog allows selecting between two roles. One is to install SQL Server Features – for example if you install a new SQL Server. And the other one if you want to install Gemini in a SharePoint Farm.

I will do the Gemini installation as soon as possible, an will let you know about the facts in my blog.

By Thomas Bolt (Host) on 8/10/2009 10:41 AM

I just received the notification mail that the August CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available today (for MSDN and Technet Subscribers; public on 12th of August), and that I can start now registering myself for the Preview of Project Gemini. That’s what I’m waiting for, for a long time now. So hopefully I will get the invitation for the Gemini preview. I’m very interested in testing out Gemini and see what chances and what challenges will come up for our future projects.

By Thomas Bolt on 6/18/2009 2:51 PM

You thought PerformancePoint Server is dead? It is not!

Microsoft announced a new Accelerator-component on their partner website; The "Financial Planning Accelerator". This component is derived from the source code and project files of the Planning Module of PerformancePoint server and is available on a non-cost, individual license.

Microsoft Partners can get and modify the source code like it were open source. But in fact it isn't, because PPS Client Access Licenses are needed to distribute the code to the end users.

You can find more information about the Financial Planning Accelerator on Microsoft's Partner Website.

By Thomas Bolt on 11/9/2007 2:55 PM

While implementing dynamic dimension data security in Analysis Services 2005 I ran into a problem with linking members of a set into another hierarchy. My problem was that I needed a set of members from a specific hierarchy "A" to specify the allowed member set of the dimension hierarchy "A". Unfortunately it wasn't possible to get the members from the hierarchy "A". It was only possible to get them from another hierarchy "B" of the same dimension.

As you possibly know, there is a nice MDX function LinkMember, which can be used to do exactly this kind of conversion between hierarchies. Sadly, you can only link one member, but not a whole set of members.

I've searched a long time to find a solution for this problem, but couldn't find something. As far as I know, there is no possibility to do this in MDX, so I wrote my own LinkSet function in a .NET assembly. The following code-listing shows how I did that. I know there is possibly a better and more flexible solution, but it works for my requirements ... Read More »

By Thomas Bolt (Host) on 11/6/2007 6:42 PM

If you want do design a SharePoint 2007 Services or Server Site which uses Forms Login with Office SharePoint Designer, it is important to save the authentication cookie on the client. This is required by SharePoint Designer, because it uses pass-through authentication, which doesn't work if you have forms authentication enabled on your site. By selecting "Login automatically" at the sites login screen, your credentials get stored in an authentication cookie, which then is used by SharePoint designer.

If you use Internet Explorer 7 on your machine and your site is only reachable over the internet, you will run into an authentication problem even if you have selected "Login automatically". The reason for this lies in the trusting-mechanism of IE7. As said before, the site is reachable over the internet. Therefore it isn't a trusted site per default, and the creation of an authentication cookie isn't allowed. So the only thing you have to do is to add it to your trusted sites in the internet options dial ... Read More »