title: Deploying cube generates ddl300 error with FormatString
body: <p>I modified a fully working Analysis Services cube to change the format of several date fields. Now when I try to deploy it I get the error...</p>
  
  <pre><code>The ddl300_300:FormatString element at line 901, column 41 (namespace http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2011/engine/300/300) cannot appear under Envelope/Body/Execute/Command/Batch/Alter/ObjectDefinition/Database/Dimensions/Dimension/Attributes/Attribute.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Versions</strong></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Visual Studio 2010 (10.0.40219.1) </li>
  <li>BIDS Helper 2012 (1.6.4.0)</li>
  <li>Deploying to SSAS 2008R2 (10.50.1600.1)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>Details</strong></p>
  
  <p>In several dimensions I have date attributes that are used as simple display attributes, i.e. not involved in any complex date-time manipulation. Their FormatString property is empty. When I view the cube (e.g. via Excel) the dates appear with both date and time. </p>
  
  <p>I want to show just date, not time. So I changed FormatString to <code>Short Date</code> for each of the date attributes. (Also tried <code>d/MM/yyyy</code> with the same result.)</p>
  
  <p>As mentioned above, deploying the changes now fails.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Other discussions</strong></p>
  
  <p>This issue has been mentioned by others on <a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/197f9ec4-827a-465c-a8bc-bafcfb874b4d/cube-builds-but-gets-an-error-on-deployment-ddl300300-formatstring-line-element-cannot-appear?forum=sqlanalysisservices" rel="nofollow">MSDN</a> and <a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/6cbc4ac6-4f94-4aff-9e21-a1abe95e7bbc/deploy-cube-from-visual-studio-2010-to-ssas-2008r2?forum=sqlanalysisservices" rel="nofollow">TechNet</a> but not lead to any resolution apart from backing out the changes to FormatString. It appears that BIDS Helper generates an XML spec that is incorrect for SQL Server 2008R2.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Request</strong></p>
  
  <p>If you have seen this before and fixed it please let me know how.</p>
  
  <p>Alternatively, if you are able to use the FormatString property with 2008R2, could you tell me what XML gets generated? If I knew that I could probably edit the XML to bypass the code generated by BIDS Helper.</p>