Introduction to MSSQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Custom Cubes: Financial Reporting (Part I) - Page 14

January 6, 2003

As a part of making our cube more user-friendly for information consumers, we wish to substitute the dimension names that it currently presents with more intuitive dimension fields. Let's begin with the time_by_day table.

In a case where we may not be familiar with the nature of the data or the characteristics of the fields in a given table, such as our time_by_day table, we can browse the data to get a look at its makeup.

26.  Click the upper portion (where the name appears) of the time_by_day table to select the table.

27.  Right-click and select Browse Data from the context menu, as shown in Illustration 40.

The Browse Data Viewer appears, as shown in Illustration 41 below.

28.  Close the viewer after reviewing the data columns and the formats of their contents.

29.   In the Cube Tree, expand the existing Calendar.Time dimension by clicking the "+" sign to its immediate left.

Beginning with the Calendar.Time dimension, and proceeding to the remaining dimensions, we will substitute a more user-friendly field than the original key number, from the related dimension table.

30.  Select the Calendar Time dimension level member (the single level under the Calendar.Time dimension), as shown below:

31.  Right-click the Calendar Time dimension level member.

32.  Select Delete from the context menu.

33.  Click Yes at the Confirm Level Delete dialog to delete the member.

34.  Perform steps 33 through 35 for the Store and Category dimension level members, respectively.

We should now have each dimension in place, with no levels under each of the Calendar.Time, Store and Category dimensions. We will add dimension levels from the dimension tables in the next steps.

35.  Drag the following fields from the time_by_day table over to drop onto the Calendar.Time dimension in the cube tree, in the order shown:

• the_year
• quarter
• the_month
• the_date

36.  Right-click on each of the above newly added dimension levels, and rename each, respectively, to the following:

• Calendar Year
• Calendar Quarter
• Calendar Month
• Date

Dragging the fields onto the folder in the order above, then changing their names, will result in their alignment as shown below: