Example of the time dependent company dimension

The company dimension is time dependent.

That is, it can vary over time, or more specifically, it varies with the period. A new company might be added (acquired), another might be removed (sold), and a third might be moved in the structure (ownership change).

The following example describes the transformation of a legal company structure as it looks in the 2009-01 period.

Figure 1. Company dimension transformation example for 2009-01 period
In the source, C1 and C2 belong to G2. C3 and C4 belong to G3. G2 and G3 belong to top-level G1. In the target, groups are labeled with the 2009-01 period.

In the next period, the company structure is modified and company C3 is now owned by G2 and C2 by G3. The new transformation would look like this.

Figure 2. Company dimension transformation example for 2009-02 period
In the source and in the target, company C3 is now owned by G2 and C2 is owned by G3. In the target, groups are labelled with the 2009-2 period.

Each published period (that is, each period that the user chooses when setting up the trickle-publish) has its own aggregation hierarchy. The naming convention contains both the consolidation type, the group code, and the period from the source.

The company dimension in the target is the sum of the period specific hierarchies illustrated and the leaf nodes. This means that the target company dimension will have one top node per period.

In the current solution, it is possible to drill down through the company hierarchy one period at a time. However, if you drill down through the 2009-01 company hierarchy after having selected the 2009-03 period dimension, the result will be inconsistent. Time-dependent dimension aggregation is not currently supported.