By Brian Tufnell

If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know Red Gate is developing SSAS Compare to simplify deployment in the world of SQL Server Analysis Services. You’ll also know we’re keen to get your feedback while the tool is still in development, so we’ve set up a UserVoice page where you can submit your ideas and vote for others.

We review the UserVoice page regularly to see what our users are saying about the tool and what they want to see next. The feedback helps us prioritize what to work on next, so if there are features that you’re desperate for, let us know by adding them to the page. We can’t promise to deliver all of the ideas suggested, but we’ll do our best to add the most requested ones.

Right now, these are the five most popular ideas:

• Make SSAS Compare a BIDS plugin
• Add a set of filters for objects not to compare or update (similar to SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare)
• Add ability to compare to a XMLA file
• Add ability to update data source independently of the “update all elements” checkbox
• Add save/load option to remember comparison configuration settings (eg for when the same comparison needs to be repeated regularly)

I only joined Red Gate a month ago, and having come from a telecoms background where our end users were national network operators who didn’t interface directly to the software development teams, this dynamic way of working openly with the end users during the entire development cycle is refreshing. It’s great that users are able to influence the development in this way, and it allows us to make sure what we’re creating is what our customers really want.

So keep your comments and ideas coming in, and together we’ll make SSAS Compare even more awesome.