Essbase - Export Data (Post 3 of 3)

DATAEXPORT Calculation function:
I have been working with Essbase for a long time and I wish this function came out a long time ago.

* Only available in BSO applications as Calc Functions are not supported in ASO.

* You can export data to a text file while specifying the delimiter and file path/name (I have used this often since the release)

* You can export data to a binary file (haven't needed to go down this path yet, but looking forward to testing with it)

* You can export data to a relational database (like SQL Server) using an ODBC connection, be careful with this if you are using SQL Server 2005, had some issues about 1 year ago and the help desk really didn't help...but no issues with SQL Server 2000.

* The best part about this function is that it works like any other calculation function where you can FIX on any subset of data. So, if you only to fix on "Actual", for the Month of January, for a specific product..YOU CAN!!! The performance is very fast (assuming you have your dense/sparse settings set up properly)

* You have the ability to Export data based on certain conditions, like "Sales">500.

* Not only can you export using a Fix statement, you have ability to control the format of the text file (similar to report script functionality). Here are the options (I've used the ones in bold most often):

DataExportLevel ALL | LEVEL0 | INPUT;
DataExportDynamicCalc ON | OFF;
DataExportDecimal n;
DataExportPrecision n;
DataExportColFormat ON | OFF;
DataExportColHeader dimensionName;
DataExportDimHeader ON | OFF;
DataExportRelationalFile ON | OFF;
DataExportOverwriteFile ON | OFF;
DataExportDryRun ON | OFF;