Regardless of whether the perception of using SmartView for large queries is good or bad, the reality is that finance and accounting users require the ability to pull large volumes of information out of Essbase.  The only limit that I am aware of in the days of the Excel Add-In was the maximum number of rows Excel would allow (assuming the Essbase application cache settings were high enough to support it).  With SmartView, there is a limit.  The limit is controllable very easily, however.  The error that users may question an administrator follows.

“Cannot perform cube view operation. OLAP error (1020011): Maximum number of rows [5000] exceeded.”

To increase the maximum number of rows a user can retrieve, or submit, edit the service.olap.dataQuery.grid.maxRows property in the essbase.properties file.  The default is 5000. While editing this property, it may be benefitial to evaluate the size if the columns (.olap.dataQuery.grid.maxColumns), which is set to 255 by default.

Once this is updated, restart the Hyperion services.

The location of the essbase.properties file is dependent on the version of Essbase installed.  Start by going to the server with APS installed.

Location for version 9.3
%HYPERION_HOME%\AnalyticProviderServices\bin directory

Location for version 11
%HYPERION_HOME%\products\Essbase\aps\bin\