We should get a verification dialog confirming that the
source has been established in our definition (as shown in Illustration 7).
Illustration 7: Verification of the Connection to the FoodMart 2000 Database
-
Click OK, and the Microsoft Data Link
verification dialog box closes.
We will leave all the other Data Link Properties at their
default setpoints for now.
-
Click OK on the Data Link Properties
tab.
The Data Link Properties dialog closes,
and we can see that the new source appears under the Data Sources folder
in the tree area, on the left side of the Management Console, displaying
the actual file name, as shown below.
Illustration 8: Initial view of Our Newly Created Data Source
As mentioned in Lesson One, we might want to
make this a more intuitive -- or at least shorter-name in order to keep a tidy
appearance. As a simple "rename" capability is not in the cards, we will have
to be a bit creative here; A right-mouse click on our new data source allows a Copy
action, which will act as a workaround for renaming the object in question.
-
Right-click the new data
source.
-
Click Copy.
-
Highlight the Data Sources
folder.
-
Select Paste from the
popup menu.
This causes
Analysis Services to
indicate that a duplicate has been detected, and to prompt us for a unique name
to rectify the confusion. We will respond to the new name request with
MyFoodMart2,
using the dialog box that appears (as shown below in
Illustration 9).
Illustration 9: Changing the Name of the Newly Copied Cube as a Means of Renaming
The Duplicate Name dialog thus again
acts as our agent of change, and, once we click OK, adds the
newly named data source under the data sources folder.
-
Click OK to close the Duplicate
Name dialog.
All that remains is to delete the original
data source, from which we cloned
MyFoodMart2.
-
Right-click the original data
source, and select Delete on the popup menu, then click the Yes button,
to organize our new data source folder.
Our tree should now resemble that shown in
Illustration
10.
Illustration 10: Changing the Name of the Newly Copied Cube as a Means of Renaming
In Lesson One we used the Cube Wizard, together
with the subsidiary specialized wizards (including the Dimension Wizard),
as called by the Cube Wizard, to rapidly create a simple cube to
explore the various aspects and steps of the process from a relatively high
level. In this lesson, the focus is the creation and manipulation of the time
dimension. We will, however, need a cube structure in place to house the
dimension hierarchies that we intend to build. We will now create the cube in
which our dimension will reside, and then move the focus solely to the handling
of dimension structures for the remainder of the lesson.
We will use the Dimension Wizard,
which we will access from the Cube Wizard in creating a cube shell
structure for the reasons we have mentioned, to create our first time dimension
hierarchy, Calendar Time. We will then return to dimension manipulation
via the Dimension Editor to create a Fiscal hierarchy, to further
illustrate our options, and the processes involved, in creating multiple time
hierarchies, complete with discussion regarding their uses.
We now have an OLAP database in place, linked to a valid data
source (the FoodMart 2000 database). Our preparation for the lesson
(and for the creation of any dimension) is complete. The next step in
our preparation will be to initialize the Cube Wizard, and to set up our
basic table structure. Dimensions are obviously of little immediate use if we
do not have data working within them. We will select a fact table along with
dimension table sources to allow us to get a feel for how the time dimensions,
our true concern in this lesson, interact with the data to construct OLAP
cubes, and to enable OLAP reporting.
Page 5: Creating the Cube with the Cube Wizard
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