Creating the Cube
The Cube Editor will
first guide us through the selection of our fact table, which houses the
measures upon which we seek to report. We will create a basic cube shell by
taking the following actions:
1.
Right-click the new Cubes
folder under the MyCube2 database we created above.
2.
Select New Cube from the
initial shortcut menu.
3.
Click Editor, as shown
in the illustration below.
Illustration 11: Initializing the Cube Editor
The Cube Editor
appears, beginning with the Choose a Fact Table dialog, providing us
with an opportunity to select a fact table for our cube, as depicted in Illustration
12 below.
Illustration 12: The Choose a Fact Table Dialog
4.
Select the Sales_Fact_1997
table.
The
list of columns in the Sales_Fact_1997 table appears in the Details
pane on the right half of the dialog.
5.
Click OK.
The
Fact Table Row Count message box appears, asking if we want to count
fact table rows, as shown below:
Illustration 13: The Fact Table Row Count Message Box
6.
Click Yes.
The
Cube Editor window appears, showing the cube tree (top) and properties
pane (bottom) on the left of the window, and the fact table schema (the Schema
tab view) on the right, by default. The window should appear as depicted in Illustration
14 below.
We
are required to select a fact table to proceed.
Illustration 14: The Cube Editor, with the Sales_Fact_1997 Table Schema View
7.
Add the following measures to
the Measures folder, by dragging each from the Sales_Fact_1997 table and dropping it onto
the folder, in the following order:
- store_cost
- store_sales
- unit_sales
The selected measures
fields appear in the Measures folder (sans underscores, which are
converted to spaces; initial caps are another automatic conversion) as shown
below:
Illustration 15: The Measures Folder with Newly Added Measures
Page 6: Creating the Cube (Continued)
See All Articles by Columnist William E. Pearson, III
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