This article explains how to do Market Basket Analysis in SSAS 2005 (Microsoft SQL Analysis

Services).

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Introduction
This article explains how to do Market Basket Analysis in SSAS 2005 (Microsoft SQL Analysis
Services). Market Basket Analysis answers questions of this kind: "How many customers who
bought product A also bought product B?" This article assumes some prior knowledge of SSAS and
MDX. Here is what we want the result set to look like:

The following example will use the Northwind sample database. If you don’t have this database
installed on your server, please use this file: Northwind.sql. The Northwind database has the
following Entity Relationship Diagram:

To understand the problem, let us suppose we have a Sales cube with a Product dimension.
Initially, I thought the Market Basket Analysis would be easy to create by placing the Product
dimension on both rows and columns. Here is the MDX:

SQL
SELECT
[Products].[Products].Members on Rows,
[Products].[Products].Members on Columns
FROM [Sales]

However, the statement above will return an error:

The Products hierarchy already appears in the Axis0 axis.

The next apparent solution to this problem is to add a duplicate cube dimension (Products 2) to the
Sales cube. Here is the MDX:

SQL
SELECT
[Products].[Products].Members on Rows,
[Products 2].[Products].Members on Columns
FROM [Sales]

However, this MDX returns the following result set:

You can see that the data is populated only diagonally. The problem is that you see that data only
in intersection of Product A and Product A, or Product B and Product B. This is not what we want.
This problem is caused by the way we linked two identical dimensions to the same measure group.

What we want is to see is Product A and Product B purchased together (have by the same order ID).
This can be accomplished by doing the following:

1. Creating a duplicate measure group for the Sales data.

2. Linking two Sales measure groups by an Order dimension.
3. Linking first Sales measure groups to first Product dimension.
 4. Linking second Sales measure groups to second Product dimension.
5. Hiding measures in the second measure group.
6. Linking second Product dimension to the first Sales measure group using a Many-to-Many
relationship type.

So, let us begin by creating a project in BIDS (SQL Server Business Intelligence Development
Studio).

Next, create a connection to the Nothwind database:

Next, create the data source view:
Next, create the Product dimension by using the Products and Categories tables. The key for the
dimension will be ProductID.
Next, create the Orders dimension by using the Orders Table. The key for the dimension will be
OrderID.
Now, create the Sales cube. Uncheck the Auto-Build.
To create a duplicate measure group, you will need to create a duplicate Sales table in the Data
Source View. We have to do this because SSAS does no allow you to create two measure groups for
one table. Open the Data Source View; right click on en empty area and choose Add New Named
Query. The query should be:

SQL
SELECT * FROM [Order Details]
The Data Source View should look like:

Under the Cube structur, tab, right click on the cube and choose to add a new measure group.

Under the Dimension Usage tab, right click to add a new cube dimension. Choose Products.
Rename the cube dimension to “Products 2”.
Link the second product dimension to the first Sales measure group using a Many-to-Many
relationship type.
Deployment
If you are too lazy to follow the steps above, you can restore the OLAP database from this backup
file: Northwind.abf. Make sure to update the connection and password to the NorthWind database.

Alternatively, you can restore the OLAP database from the XMLA script file: Northwind.xmla. Make
sure to update the connection and password to the Northwind database and to process the
database.

Points of interest
Next, you might want to try a multi-product analysis. This kind of analysis would answer questions
like “How many customers who buy product A and B also buy product C?” As you might have
guessed, the solution to this problem is the same. You will need to create a new Product cube
Dimension and another duplicate of the Order Details measure group.