Power Pivot Principles: The A to Z of DAX Functions – INFO.KPIS

In our long-established Power Pivot Principles articles, we continue our series on the A to Z of Data Analysis eXpression (DAX) functions.  This week, we look at INFO.KPIS.

The INFO.KPIS function

Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) are specialised queries provided by SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), Azure Analysis Services (AAS), and Power BI that offer an administrative view into the internal state of these systems.  DMVs are used to retrieve metadata, monitor health and performance, and diagnose problems within the database or data model.  They serve as a powerful tool for administrators and developers to gain insights into the workings of the database engine and the tabular data model, covering aspects like performance metrics, configuration settings and the structure of database objects.

The $System schema DMVs in SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), Azure Analysis Services (AAS), and Power BI are categorised into four [4] types, each serving specific purposes:

• DISCOVER: requires admin privileges and provides information about the model, including details on connected sessions and environment configuration
• DMSCHEMA: focused on data mining, offering insights for predictive analytics and pattern recognition, mainly used in SSAS/AAS
• MDSCHEMA: targets multidimensional models, delivering metadata and structure from an MDX perspective, relevant for OLAP cubes and dimensions
• TMSCHEMA: designed for tabular models, it provides detailed metadata about tables, columns, measures, etc., using Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL) information, crucial for Power BI and tabular SSAS/AAS models.

In the past, if we wanted to query those $System schema DMVs we used external tools like Tabular Editors or DAX Studio to query them:

The INFO.KPIS function is one of the system functions.  It employs the following syntax:

This function has no parameters.

Based upon the ‘[MS-SSAS-T]: SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular Protocol’ from Microsoft (which you may access here), the KPI object represents a key performance indicator (KPI) object.  It is a child of a Measure object.

We can write this INFO.KPIS function on DAX query view to get the same information on the TMSCHEMA_KPIS:

It will query the $SYSTEM.TMSCHEMA_KPIS and return an entire table with 13 columns:

• ID: this is a reference to the object
• MeasureID: this is an ID-based reference to a Measure object
• Description: this is the description of the object
• TargetDescription: this is the description of the target value of the KPI
• TargetExpression: this is an expression that evaluates to a number and indicates the goal for the KPI
• TargetFormatString: this is the format string to be used when presenting the target value for the KPI
• StatusGraphic: this is a string that identifies the recommended graphic to represent the status of the KPI
• StatusDescription: this is a description of the Status value for the KPI
• StatusExpression: this is an expression that is used to calculate the status of the KPI
• TrendGraphic: this is a string that identifies the graphic to show for the trend of the KPI
• TrendDescription: this is a description of the trend value of the KPI
• TrendExpression: this is an expression representing the trend of the KPI
• ModifiedTime: this is the time that the object was last modified.

It should be noted that:

• it is used for querying the DMV (Dynamic Management Views) from the $System schema called TMSCHEMA where TM stand for ‘Tabular model’ and TMSCHEMA provides information from the tabular model
• sometimes querying DMVs may fail if we do not have the appropriate permission
• there is also a MDSCHEMA for KPIS call MDSCHEMA_KPIS but its output is not the same as TMSCHEMA_KPIS and INFO.KPIS.

Come back next week for our next post on Power Pivot in the Blog section.  In the meantime, please remember we have training in Power Pivot which you can find out more about here.  If you wish to catch up on past articles in the meantime, you can find all of our Past Power Pivot blogs here.