Create a Dimension View

When you need to develop OLAP reporting solutions for diverse groups in your organization, you can create dimension views and apply them to the cubes in your model, thereby creating customized cubes and drill-through reports to meet the needs of each group.

For example, suppose you want to create a different cube for each regional sales manager that contains the transaction details for their region and summarized values for the other regions. You begin by defining an Asia Pacific Region View that summarizes the data for Northern, Central, and Southern Europe and the Americas, while retaining the details for the Asia Pacific region.

Screen capture - dimension view

You apply your dimension view by selecting the View option on the Dimensions tab of the property sheet for the PowerCube object. You then repeat these steps to create the required dimension views in your other regional cubes.

The resulting regional cubes contain detailed data for each manager of that region and summarized information for the other regions.

Tip: Instead of creating a separate dimension view for each category in a level, you may want to create a cube group based on that target level, if this is easier to implement and maintain. Because only a subset of the categories is written to the cube, a cube that implements dimension views often has the advantage of being smaller and therefore quicker to build and to deploy.

You should keep the following constraints in mind when implementing this feature:

  • You cannot base your partitions on the dimension used to create a dimension view. If you do, conflicts can result, which in turn may halt the cube creation process.
  • You should not use dimension views as the basis for custom views, as this may negatively affect auto-partitioning.

For more information about custom views, see Adding Security.

Procedure

  1. Open the Categories diagram for the relevant dimension.
    Tip: If the Dimensions pane is not showing, click the Dimensions tab.
  2. In the Dimension pane, right-click the dimension and click Add New View.
  3. In the View name box, type a meaningful name for the dimension view and click OK.

    You can also type a description of the new dimension view in the Description box.

  4. In the category viewer, select the required categories and, from the Diagram menu, customize the new dimension view by selecting the category actions that will help you achieve the summarization you want.

    For more information, see

  5. Open the PowerCube property sheet and click the Dimensions tab.
  6. In the Dimensions list, right-click the dimension in which you created the dimension view and click View.
  7. In the Select a View dialog box, select the dimension view that you created, and click OK twice.