Installing the Accelerator as a Windows Service

This guide describes how to install Flexmonster Accelerator as a Windows Service.

The main benefits of running the Accelerator as a Windows service are:

Runs in the background.
Starts automatically with Windows.
Hard to close unintentionally.

If you need more control and flexibility over processing and loading data, consider using the Accelerator as a DLL.

Prerequisites

Microsoft Analysis Services installed and configured
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 or later
Flexmonster CLI
Install it with the following command:
```
npm install -g flexmonster-cli
```

Step 1. Install Flexmonster Accelerator

Flexmonster Accelerator can be installed on your SSAS server or on a different machine. To achieve the best performance, we recommend installing the Accelerator on the SSAS server.

To start the installation, run the add CLI command:

flexmonster add accelerator -i

This command does the following:

Downloads Flexmonster Accelerator to the flexmonster-accelerator/ folder in your current directory.
Starts the installation process using the flexmonster-accelerator/Flexmonster Accelerator.msi setup file.

When the installation begins, just follow the wizard. By default, the Accelerator will be installed to the C:/Program Files (x86)/Flexmonster/Flexmonster Accelerator/ folder.

You can check whether the Accelerator is up and running by navigating to its URL in the browser (http://localhost:50005 by default).

Step 2. Configure Flexmonster Accelerator on the server

After a successful installation, run Flexmonster Accelerator Manager:

Here is Flexmonster Accelerator Manager is shown

Click the Config button to open the flexmonster.config file, which contains configurations for the Accelerator. To learn more about them, see the configurations reference.

When the configuration is finished, restart Flexmonster Accelerator using the Accelerator Manager: click the Stop button and then click Start. Then you can close Flexmonster Accelerator Manager — the service will continue working in the background.

Step 3. Open a port for the Accelerator in the firewall

If you plan to allow connections to the Accelerator from outside the server, open the appropriate port in the firewall. The default port number is 50005, but it can be changed using the PORT parameter in the flexmonster.config file.

Step 4. Embed the component into your webpage

If Flexmonster is not yet embedded, set up an empty component in your webpage:

In pure JavaScript

Complete the Integrating Flexmonster guide. Your code should look similar to the following example:

const pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer",
  toolbar: true
});

In React

Complete the Integration with React guide. Your code should look similar to the following example:

<FlexmonsterReact.Pivot
 toolbar={true}
/>

In Angular

Complete the Integration with Angular guide. Your code should look similar to the following example:

<fm-pivot
 [toolbar]="true">
</fm-pivot>

In Vue

Complete the Integration with Vue guide. Your code should look similar to the following example:

<Pivot
 toolbar
/>

Step 5. Configure the component

Create a report where the proxyUrl, catalog, and cube parameters are set to your specific values:

const pivot = new Flexmonster({
  container: "pivotContainer",
  toolbar: true,  
  report: { 
    dataSource: { 
      type: "microsoft analysis services",
      // Flag to use the Accelerator instead of XMLA
      binary: true,
      // URL to Flexmonster Accelerator
      proxyUrl: "http://localhost:50005",
      // Catalog name for multidimensional models
      // Database name for tabular models
      catalog: "Adventure Works DW Standard Edition",
      // Cube name for multidimensional models
      // Model name for tabular models
      cube: "Adventure Works"
    } 
  } 
});

Live example

See the full list of Flexmonster properties used to configure the dataSource object.

Now open the webpage in the browser to see the pivot table with your SSAS data.

List of supported configuration parameters

When connecting to data from Microsoft Analysis Services via Flexmonster Accelerator, you can use the following properties of the DataSourceObject:

List of properties

Property/Type	Description
type String	The data source type. When connecting to data from Microsoft Analysis Services, set the `type` to `"microsoft analysis services"`.
binary Boolean	Indicates whether to use Flexmonster Accelerator or the XMLA protocol. When set to `true`, Flexmonster will use Flexmonster Accelerator. Default value: `false`.
proxyUrl String	The URL to Flexmonster Accelerator.
catalog String	The data source catalog name for multidimensional models. If a tabular model is used, `catalog` is a database name.
cube String	The data source catalog name for multidimensional models. If a tabular model is used, `cube` is the model name.
dataSourceInfo String	optional The service info.
effectiveUserName String	optional Specify this property when an end-user identity must be impersonated on the server. Specify the account in the `domain\user` format.
customData String	optional The `customData` property is added to the connection string when connecting to a cube. Commonly used for user authorization. You can check out the Using the customData and SSAS thread.
localeIdentifier Number	optional The Microsoft locale ID value for your language.
mapping MappingObject \| String	optional Defines how fields from the data source are treated and presented within the component. When using Microsoft Analysis Services, you can specify the field’s captions or hide the field from the dataset. Read more in the Mapping guide. It can be either an inline MappingObject or a URL to a JSON file with the mapping Live example.
roles String	optional A comma-delimited list of predefined roles to connect to a server or a database using the permissions defined by that role. If this property is omitted, all roles are used and the effective permissions are the combination of all roles. For example, to combine `"admin"` and `"manager"` roles, set the `roles` property like so: `roles: "admin,manager"`.
subquery String	optional Sets a server-side filter to decrease the size of the response from the OLAP cube. For example, to show reports for only one specific year set the `subquery` like so: `"subquery": "select {[Delivery Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year].&[2008]} on columns from [Adventure Works]"` Live example.
requestHeaders Object	optional Adds custom request headers. Consists of `"key": "value"` pairs, where `"key"` is a header name and `"value"` is its value Live example. Note The `requestHeaders` property is not saved when obtaining the report via `save()` and `getReport()` API calls.
useGranularityNamesForDateFilters Boolean	optional Adjusts date filters to the cube structure. When set to `true`, date filters use `granularityNames`. When set to `false`, date filters use the unique name of the hierarchy being filtered. Default value: `true`.
withCredentials Boolean	optional Indicates whether cross-site `Access-Control` requests should be made using credentials such as authorization headers (`true`) or not (`false`). For more details, refer to MDN web docs. Setting the `withCredentials` flag to `true` is recommended when using Windows authentication and other types of server authentication. When set to `false`, the browser does not ask for credentials and does not include them in outgoing requests. Default value: `false`.

About response caching

Caching responses can greatly improve performance. By default, caching is enabled and controlled by the Accelerator.

However, if the underlying database ever changes, the cache goes out of date. It is possible to disable the cache with the CACHE_ENABLED parameter in the flexmonster.config file:

CACHE_ENABLED = false

Access flexmonster.config through the Flexmonster Accelerator Manager.

Uninstalling the Accelerator

To completely uninstall the Accelerator as a Windows service, you need to delete the Accelerator executable and the Accelerator folders.

Learn how to uninstall the Accelerator:

Step 1. Navigate to the folder where the FlexmonsterAccelerator.msi file is located (e.g., flexmonster-accelerator/).

Step 2. Run the the FlexmonsterAccelerator.msi file.

Step 3. In the wizard window, select the Remove Flexmonster Accelerator option and click Finish.

Here's how a pop-up window with the selected option looks like

Step 4. optional Back up the flexmonster-config.json file if you need it for future use. By default, it is located in the C:/Program Files (x86)/Flexmonster/Flexmonster Accelerator/ folder.

Step 5. Delete the Accelerator folders:

Folder where the FlexmonsterAccelerator.msi file is located (e.g., flexmonster-accelerator/).
Folder where the service is installed (by default, C:/Program Files (x86)/Flexmonster/Flexmonster Accelerator/).