Dynamic Calc with if statements

Question

Hello
I have a dynamically calced member who’s calculation depends on what member of another dimension the user is looking at, so in the calc we have several if statements using the @ismbr function. Our calc looks something like this:
If (@ismbr("Dim Member1") or @ismbr("Dim Member2"))
     Big Calc 1;
elseif (@ismbr("Dim Member3") or @ismbr("Dim Member4"))
     Big Calc 2;
elseif(@ismbr("Dim Member5"))
     Big Calc 3;
else
     Last Big Calc;
endif;
What we are seeing is that when we run a query that should fall through to the final else (IE the Last Big Calc;) every calculation under every if is being executed. To come to this conclusion we did the following. Each of the calculations is pretty complex and can take a bit of time to run so we replaced Big Calcs 1-3 with very simple calcs that are very fast and ran the same query again, and while the result returned was the same (IE the result of Last Big Calc) it returned 10 times faster.
I’m pretty naive about most things Essbase but I’m stuck with trying to solve this problem so I was hoping that someone might have run into something like this before or knows how I can solve it. Any insight will be very appreciated.
I’m using Essbase 9.3.1 and my cube is a BSO cube.
Thanks
David

Answer 1

Is it possible that the intermediate results can be put into "memo" members as a stored value, being "on call" so they don't get re-calculated as often?
This wouldn't eliminate the source of the issue, but it would return the results much faster during retrieves. The downside of course is that these values would extend the calc time, so it may not be the right answer for you.
Alternative #2: Make the final value stored, using a calc script to iterate the formulas only for the appropriate member sets, eliminating the duplicate efforts but moving the calculations away from the D-C realm.
-Doug.