SSAS: Processing Dimension without affecting the published cube?

Question

Every day, I process the DimDate dimension before processing the cube. If I process the cube without processing the dimension, it's very likely the cube will generate date errors.

Regardless of how I process the dimension ( ProcessFull or ProcessData ) the cube becomes unavailable in Excel or PowerBi.

On the other hand, if I process the cube without ProcessData , the cube will be available in the server while it's being processed.

How can I process a Dimension without affecting the usability of the cube?

Answer 1

You need to use ProcessUpdate for dimensions and ProcessFull/ProcessData for the cube (potentially individual measure groups and/or individual partitions depending on the amount of you fact data). It's still a good practice to run ProcessFull also for dimensions from time to time (for example, on a weekend or once a month), because ProcessUpdate makes soft (logical) deletes on the dimension members which don't exist anymore which will make your dimensions larger with the time. Also please checkout the documentation