Association Object

The Association object defines the relationship between a model object and the underlying data source.

Discussion

Use this object to manage the link between objects in a model and their underlying data sources.

Each Association object in a collection has a role. For example, an Association references source values, or displays short names, or defines a sort order. To specify a role for an Association, use the AssociationRole property.

Each Association object references a data source column. How an Association object uses a column depends on the role assigned to the Association. To specify a column, set the Label property to the name of the reference object.

To create an Association object, use the Add method of the Associations collection, or the AssociateWith or DimensionAssociateWith methods of an applicable object.

By default, categories appear in a level, and ultimately in a cube, in the order that they are encountered in the data source. To sort these objects, use an Association object and set the AssociationRole property to trAssociationOrderBy.

When Transformer sorts a level, it bases the sort on the column specified in the Label property. For example, you can a sort a Product level by product_name or product_number.

Use the Context property to name the drill-down path to which the sort applies. Where a level represents the convergence of two or more drill-down paths, you can apply a different sort order to each one.

Use the OrderByDescending property to specify how the sort is ordered. If you use a column of numeric data to define the sort, use the OrderByStorageType to specify the size of the data type.

To save changes to the properties of this object, use the Update method.

Related Topics

These tables list related collections, methods, and properties.

Method	Description
Delete Method	Deletes the Association object.
Update Method	Updates the Association object.

Property	Description
Application Property	Returns the Transformer Application object.
AssociationRole Property	Sets or returns the role performed by the Association object.
AssociationType Property	Sets or returns the type of data source related to an Association object.
Context Property	Sets or returns the drill-down path used to order categories within a level.
Label Property	Sets or returns the name of the reference object.
Parent Property	Returns the parent object.
RefreshDescription Property	Sets a data source column for the Association object.
Type Property	Returns the object type.

Examples

objAssociation = objDrill.ConvergenceLevel.Associations.Add()