Interview Questions for MDX (MDX Interviews)

General concept: Usually interviewer starts with few conceptual questions to understand level of interviewee in related field.

Question1: Explain the structure of MDX query?

Question2: Tell me your 5 mostly used MDX functions?

Question3: What is the difference between set and tuple?

Question4: What do you understand by Named set? Is there any new feature added in SSAS 2008 related to named set?

Question5: How will you differentiate among level, member, attribute, hierarchy?

Question6: What are the differences among exists, existing and scope?

Question7: What will happen if we remove CALCULATE keyword in the script?

Question8:How will you pass parameter in MDX?

Question9: What is the diffrence between .MEMBERS and .CHILDREN?

Question10:What is the difference between NON EMPTY keyword and NONEMPTY() function?

MDX Queries: If person does well in "general concept" category, interviewer tries to evaluate if person has actually worked on product/tool.

Question1: Write MDX for retrieving top 3 customers based on internet sales amount?

Question2: Write MDX to find current month's start and end date?


Question3: Write MDX to compare current month's revenue with last year same month revenue?

Question4: Write MDX to find MTD(month to date), QTD(quarter to date) and YTD(year to date) internet sales amount for top 5 products?

Question5: Write MDX to find count of regions for each country?

Question6: Write MDX to rank all the product category based on calendar year 2005 internet sales amount?

Question7: Write MDX to extract nth position tuple from specific set?

Question8: Write MDX to set default member for particular dimension?

If you want to practice more on writing MDX queries than you can try following posts/articles:

SSAS - MDX Query Interview Questions and Answers-I

SSAS-MDX Interview questions - Time based function-II

MDX SCOPE statement Interview questions & Answers

SSAS MDX Query Interview Questions and Answers

MDX time cheat sheet

Performance: If interview position is for MSBI developer then you might not to address performance questions but if you are for MSBI tech lead position then there will be few questions on performance aspect.

Question1:What are the performance consideration for improving MDX queries?


Question2: Is Rank MDX function performance intensive?


Question3: Which one is better from performance point of view...NON Empty keyword or NONEMPTY function?

Question4: How will you find performance bottleneck in any given MDX?

Question5: What do you understand by storage engine and formula engine?

Hope this list will help you in coming interviews. Best of luck :)