SSAS Tabular - Multiple Models?

Question

We're starting to build an SSAS tabular model and wondering if most people have one model or multiple. If multiple, do you duplicate tables that are needed by each, or is there a way to share tables between models? I think I know the answer, but I'm hoping those with more experience can confirm what we've found...

From what I've researched I think... - you can't share tables across models - any "common" tables would have to be duplicated in and deployed with each model and would take up memory - we should create one model, use perspectives to organize the tables and make it easier to work with - multiple models could be acceptable if there is little or no common data across models

thanks

Answer 1

You are correct, there is no way to share tables between models.

Perspectives can help.

The question of whether to have one model or more depends on the user audience. Who are the users? How analytically savvy are they? Will they have a reasonable understanding of the model structure?

One issue that affects my rather unsophisticated users is when a dimension does not relate to all fact tables. In this scenario, as is expected, measures on the fact table calculate identical values for every member of the unrelated dimension. For less knowledgeable users, this situation is confusing.