Common Questions

The OLAP for ArcGIS add-on includes a tutorial to guide new users through the process of creating maps based on OLAP data.

Technical support is not available for free add-ons. However, you may send inquiries to olap@esri.com.

OLAP for ArcGIS has been tested with Microsoft Analysis Services, SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW), and SAS OLAP Server. It connects to an OLAP server via the OLE DB for OLAP driver for this specific product. Therefore, an OLE DB for OLAP driver needs to be installed on the client machine before OLAP for ArcGIS can connect to the OLAP data.

No. Tables created using OLAP for ArcGIS cannot be used with the geoprocessing framework.

Yes. To visualize queries from SAP BW, you must check the Allow External Access to this Query option for your SAP query on the Extended tab (on the Query Properties dialog box) in the SAP Query Designer Tool.

The restriction of permissions to access SAP BW InfoCubes in OLAP for ArcGIS is controlled by authorization objects in SAP BW profiles. The main SAP authorization objects to control access to SAP BW queries are S_RS_ICUBE and S_RS_COMP. Contact your SAP security administrator to make the changes in the user profiles for the desired InfoCubes.

The restriction of permissions to access SAP BW queries in OLAP for ArcGIS is controlled by authorization objects in SAP BW profiles. The main SAP authorization objects to control access to SAP BW queries are S_RS_COMP and S_RS_COMP1. Contact your SAP security administrator to make the changes in the user profiles for the desired queries.

The OLAP for ArcGIS add-on implements an ArcObjects plug-in data source. You can access the plug-in as described in the ArcObjects Developer Help (Chapter 7: Customizing the Geodatabase—Other Plug-In Data Source Topics):

Code

Public Sub AddPlugInLayer()
  Dim pFeatWorkspace As IFeatureWorkspace
  Dim pTable As ITable
  Dim pWorkspaceFactory As IWorkspaceFactory

  Set pWorkspaceFactory = CreateObject("esriGeoDatabase.ODBOWorkspaceFactory")
  Set pFeatWorkspace = pWorkspaceFactory.OpenFromFile("C:\Documents and Settings\%UserName%\Application Data\Esri\ArcCatalog\OLE DB for OLAP\Analysis_Services", 0)
  Set pTable = pFeatWorkspace.OpenTable("Sample")
End Sub

A few notes: The add-on stores connection and Multidimensional Expressions language (MDX) queries in the user's Application Data directory (e.g., C:\Documents and Settings/‹User Name›\Application Data\Esri\ArcCatalog\OLE DB for OLAP\‹OLAPConnection›). The OLAPConnection variable in the previous path expression does not exist. It is simply used to indicate a folder that has the same name as displayed for this particular OLAP connection in ArcCatalog. Specify this folder as the workspace string when calling IWorkspaceFactory.OpenFromFile().

For each OLAP table defined for this OLAP connection, there will be an *.ods file in this folder. Specify the name of this file (without the *.ods extension) when calling IFeatureWorkspace.OpenTable().

The following Microsoft .NET Framework error message appears when exiting ArcCatalog by using the Exit menu command on the File menu or by clicking the X in the upper right-hand corner of the application window while the Table Wizard window is still open: "An unhandled exception has occurred in a component in your application. Click continue, and application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

This issue is caused by an incorrect .NET cleanup sequence in ArcCatalog. A service pack or bug fix will be provided to address the problem in the future.

The OLAP for ArcGIS add-on does not support the ArcGIS geoprocessing framework and cannot be used with most geoprocessing tools.