In This Section:
Calculating Members with Different Operators
After you create and organize the outline, as described in Creating and Changing Database Outlines, you are ready to specify how the dimensions and members in the outline behave. This chapter describes dimension and member properties and how to set them.
Note:
Some information in this chapter is designed for block storage databases and is not relevant to aggregate storage databases. For detailed information on the differences between aggregate and block storage, see Comparison of Aggregate and Block Storage. For information on creating aggregate storage applications, see Aggregate Storage Applications, Databases, and Outlines.
When you tag a dimension as a specific type, the dimension can access built-in functionality designed for that type. For example, if you define a dimension as accounts, you can specify accounting measures for members in that dimension. Essbase calculates the two primary dimension types, time and accounts, before other dimensions in the database. By default, all dimensions are tagged as none.
The following sections describe the different dimension types:
To set a dimension type, see “Setting the Dimension Type” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
Tag a dimension as time if it contains members that describe how often you collect and update data. In the Sample Basic database, for example, the Year dimension is tagged as time, as are its descendants—all Qtr members and the months (such as Jan). The time dimension also enables several accounts dimension functions, such as first and last time balances.
Understand these rules when tagging a dimension as time:
Tag a dimension as accounts if it contains items that you want to measure, such as profit or inventory.
Understand these rules when tagging a dimension as accounts:
You can create an outline that does not have an accounts dimension.
All members in the accounts dimension inherit the accounts property.
You can specify that members of the accounts dimension are calculated on the second pass through an outline. For more information, see Setting Two-Pass Calculations.
To tag a dimension as accounts, see “Tagging an Accounts Dimension” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
The following sections describe built-in functionality for accounts dimensions:
If a member of the accounts dimension uses the time balance property, it affects how Essbase calculates the parent of that member in the time dimension. By default, a parent in the time dimension is calculated based on the consolidation and formulas of its children. For example, in the Sample Basic database, the Qtr1 member is the sum of its children (Jan, Feb, and Mar). However, setting a time balance property causes parents, for example Qtr1, to roll up differently.
To set time balance properties, see “Setting Time Balance Properties” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
Example of Time Balance as None
None is the default value. When you set the time balance property as none, Essbase rolls up parents in the time dimension in the usual way—the value of the parent is based on the formulas and consolidation properties of its children.
Example of Time Balance as First
Set the time balance as first when you want the parent value to represent the value of the first member in the branch (often at the beginning of a time period).
For example, assume that you have a member named OpeningInventory that represents the inventory at the beginning of the time period. If the time period was Qtr1, OpeningInventory represents the inventory at the beginning of Jan; that is, the OpeningInventory for Qtr1 is the same as the OpeningInventory for Jan. For example, if you had 50 cases of Cola at the beginning of Jan, you also had 50 cases of Cola at the beginning of Qtr1.
Tag OpeningInventory as first, as shown in the following example consolidation:
OpeningInventory (TB First), Cola, East, Actual, Jan(+), 50 OpeningInventory (TB First), Cola, East, Actual, Feb(+), 60 OpeningInventory (TB First), Cola, East, Actual, Mar(+), 70 OpeningInventory (TB First), Cola, East, Actual, Qtr1(+), 50
Example of Time Balance as Last
Set the time balance as last when you want the parent value to represent the value of the last member in the branch (often at the end of a time period).
For example, assume that you have a member named EndingInventory that represents the inventory at the end of the time period. If the time period was Qtr1, EndingInventory represents the inventory at the end of Mar; that is, the EndingInventory for Qtr1 is the same as the EndingInventory for Mar. For example, if you had 70 cases of Cola at the end of Mar, you also had 70 cases of Cola at the end of Qtr1.
Tag EndingInventory as last, as shown in the following example consolidation.
EndingInventory (TB Last), Cola, East, Actual, Jan(+), 50 EndingInventory (TB Last), Cola, East, Actual, Feb(+), 60 EndingInventory (TB Last), Cola, East, Actual, Mar(+), 70 EndingInventory (TB Last), Cola, East, Actual, Qtr1(+), 70
Example of Time Balance as Average
Set the time balance as average when you want the parent value to represent the average value of its children.
For example, assume that you have a member named AverageInventory that represents the average of the inventory for the time period. If the time period was Qtr1, then AverageInventory represents the average of the inventory during Jan, Feb, and Mar.
Tag AverageInventory as average, as shown in the following example consolidation.
If you set the time balance as first, last, or average, set the skip property to tell Essbase what to do when it encounters missing values or values of 0.
The following table describes how each setting determines what Essbase does when it encounters a missing or zero value.
Skips data that equals zero when calculating the parent value. | |
Skips both #MISSING data and data that equals zero when calculating the parent value. |
If you mark a member as last with a skip property of missing or missing and zeros, the parent of that time period matches the last non-missing child. In the following example, EndingInventory is based on the value for Feb, because Mar does not have a value.
Variance reporting properties determine how Essbase calculates the difference between actual and budget data in a member with the @VAR or @VARPER function in its member formula. Any member that represents an expense to the company requires an expense property.
When you are budgeting expenses for a time period, the actual expenses should be lower than the budget. When actual expenses are greater than budget, the variance is negative. The @VAR function calculates Budget – Actual. For example, if budgeted expenses were $100, and you actually spent $110, the variance is -10.
When you are budgeting non-expense items, such as sales, the actual sales should be higher than the budget. When actual sales are less than budget, the variance is negative. The @VAR function calculates Actual - Budget. For example, if budgeted sales were $100, and you actually made $110 in sales, the variance is 10.
Currency conversion properties define categories of currency exchange rates. These properties are used only in currency databases on members of accounts dimensions. See Designing and Building Currency Conversion Applications.
Use country dimensions to track business activities in multiple countries. If you track business activity in the U.S. and Canada, for example, the country dimension should contain states, provinces, and countries. If a dimension is tagged as country, you can set the currency name property. The currency name property defines what type of currency this market region uses.
In a country dimension, you can specify the type of currency used in each member. For example, in the Interntl application and database shipped with Essbase, Canada has three markets—Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. They use the same currency, Canadian dollars.
This dimension type is used for currency conversion applications. See Designing and Building Currency Conversion Applications.
Use currency partition members to separate local currency members from a base currency defined in the application. If the base currency for analysis is US dollars, for example, the local currency members would contain values based on the currency type of the region, such as Canadian dollars.
This dimension type is used for currency conversion applications. For information about how to create and use currency partitions, see Designing and Building Currency Conversion Applications.
See Designing and Building Currency Conversion Applications.
Use attribute dimensions to report and aggregate data based on characteristics of standard dimensions. In the Sample Basic database, for example, the Product dimension is associated with the Ounces attribute dimension. Members of the Ounces attribute dimension categorize products based on their size in ounces.
Review the rules for using attribute dimensions in Working with Attributes.
Member consolidation properties determine how children roll up into their parents. By default, new members are given the addition (+) operator, meaning that members are added. For example, Jan, Feb, and Mar figures are added and the result stored in their parent, Qtr1.
Note:
Essbase does not use consolidation properties with members of attribute dimensions. See Calculating Attribute Data for an explanation of how the attribute dimensions works.
Table 10. Consolidation Operators
When siblings have different operators, Essbase calculates the data in top-down order. The following section describes how Essbase calculates the members listed below:
Parent1 Member1 (+) 10 Member2 (+) 20 Member3 (-) 25 Member4 (*) 40 Member5 (%) 50 Member6 (/) 60 Member7 (~) 70
Essbase calculates Member1 through Member4 as follows:
If the result of this calculation is X, Member5 consolidates as follows:
If the result of the Member1 through Member4 calculation is Y, Member6 consolidates as follows:
Because Member7 is set to No Consolidation(~), Essbase ignores Member7 in the consolidation.
You can determine how and when Essbase stores the data values for a member. For example, you can tell Essbase to only calculate the value for a member when a user requests it and then discard the data value. Table 11 describes each storage property.
Table 11. Choosing Storage Properties
To set member storage properties, see “Setting Member Storage Properties” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
Stored members contain calculated values that are stored with the member in the database after calculation. By default, members are set as stored.
When a member is Dynamic Calc, Essbase does not calculate the value for that member until a user requests it. After the user views it, Essbase does not store the value for that member. If you tag a member as Dynamic Calc and Store, Essbase performs the same operation as for a Dynamic Calc member, except that Essbase stores the data value for that member after the user views it. See Dynamically Calculating Data Values.
Essbase automatically tags members of attribute dimensions as Dynamic Calc. You cannot change this setting.
Label only members have no data associated with them. Use them to group members or to ease navigation and reporting from the Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in for Excel. Typically, you should give label only members the “no consolidation” property. For more information about member consolidation, see Setting Member Consolidation.
You cannot associate attributes with label only members. If you tag as label only a base dimension member that has attributes associated with it, Essbase removes the attribute associations and displays a warning message.
The data values associated with a shared member come from another member with the same name. The shared member stores a pointer to data contained in the other member and the data is only stored once. To define a member as shared, there must be an actual non-shared member of the same name. For example, in the Sample Basic database, the 100-20 member under 100 stores the data for that member. The 100-20 member under Diet points to that value.
Shared members are typically used to calculate the same member across multiple parents; for example, to calculate a Diet Cola member in both the 100 and Diet parents.
Using shared members lets you use members repeatedly throughout a dimension. Essbase stores the data value only once, but it displays in multiple locations. Storing the data value only once offers considerable space saving as well as processing efficiency.
To tag a member as shared, see “Setting Member Storage Properties” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
Use these sections to learn more about shared members:
Note:
Members with the same name may be duplicate members instead of shared members. See Creating and Working With Duplicate Member Outlines.
Understand these rules when creating shared members:
The shared members must be in the same dimension. For example, both 100-20 members in the Sample Basic database are in the Product dimension.
An unlimited number of shared members can have the same name.
You can create a shared member for a member with a duplicate member name. Specify the duplicate member name for which you want to create the shared member. The qualified name of the duplicate member, on which the shared member is based, is displayed in the Member Properties dialog box. See “Defining Shared Members” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
If accounts properties are assigned to shared members, the values for those accounts properties are taken from the base member, even if the accounts properties on the shared member are changed.
An actual member must be located in a dimension before its shared member.
Complex relationships between real and shared members that will be part of an attribute calculation should be avoided, or a calculation may return unexpected results. See Understanding Attribute Calculation and Shared Members.
Note:
You cannot create a shared member and the member on which it is based under the same parent. In a duplicate member outline, siblings must be unique.
Essbase retrieves shared members during drill-down, depending on their location in the spreadsheet. Essbase follows three rules during this type of retrieval:
Example of Shared Members from a Single Dimension
If you create a test dimension with all shared members based on the members of the dimension East from the Sample Basic outline, the outline would be similar to the following:
If you retrieve just the children of East, all results are from stored members because Essbase retrieves stored members by default.
If, however, you retrieve data with the children of test above it in the spreadsheet, Essbase retrieves the shared members:
If you move test above its last two children, Essbase retrieves the first three children as shared members, but the last two as stored members. Similarly, if you insert a member in the middle of the list above which was not a sibling of the shared members (for example, California inserted between Florida and Connecticut), Essbase retrieves shared members only between the non-sibling and the parent (in this case, between California and test).
Example of Retrieval with Crossed Generation Shared Members
You can modify the Sample Basic outline to create a shared member whose stored member counterpart is a sibling to its own parent:
If you create a spreadsheet with shared members in this order, Essbase retrieves all the shared members, except it retrieves the stored member West, not the shared member west:
Essbase retrieves the members in this order because test is a parent of west and a sibling of west’s stored member counterpart, West.
The shared member property defines a shared data relationship explicitly. Some members are shared even if you do not explicitly set them as shared. These members are said to be implied shared members.
Essbase assumes (or implies) a shared member relationship in the following situations:
A parent has only one child. In this situation, the parent and the child contain the same data. Essbase ignores the consolidation property on the child and stores the data only once—thus the parent has an implied shared relationship with the child. In the following example, the parent 500 has only one child, 500-10, so the parent shares the value of that child.
A parent has only one child that consolidates to the parent. If the parent has four children, but three of them are marked as no consolidation, the parent and child that consolidates contain the same data. Essbase ignores the consolidation property on the child and stores the data only once—thus the parent has an implied shared relationship with the child. In the following example, the parent 500 has only one child, 500‑10, that rolls up to it. The other children are marked as No Consolidate(~), so the parent implicitly shares the value of 500‑10.
If you do not want a member to be shared implicitly, mark the parent as Never Share so that the data is duplicated, and is not shared. See Understanding Shared Members for an explanation of how shared members work.
An alias is an alternate name for a member or shared member. For example, members in the Product dimension in the Sample Basic database are identified both by product codes, such as 100, and by more descriptive aliases, such as Cola. Aliases are stored in alias tables. Aliases can improve the readability of an outline or a report.
You can set more than one alias for a member using alias tables. For example, you could use different aliases for different kinds of reports—users may be familiar with 100-10 as Cola, but advertisers and executives may be familiar with it as The Best Cola. This list shows some products in the Sample Basic database that have two descriptive alias names:
Product Default Long Names
100-10 Cola The Best Cola
100-20 Diet Cola Diet Cola with Honey
100-30 Caffeine Free Cola All the Cola, none of the Caffeine Essbase does not support aliases for Hybrid Analysis-enabled members.
Aliases are stored in one or more tables as part of a database outline. An alias table maps a specific, named set of alias names to member names. When you create a database outline, Essbase creates an empty alias table named Default. If you don’t create any other alias tables, the aliases that you create are stored in the Default alias table.
If you want to create more than one set of aliases for outline members, create an alias table for each set. When you view the outline or retrieve data, you can use the alias table name to indicate which set of alias names you want to see. Identifying which alias table contains the names that you want to see while viewing an outline is called making an alias table the active alias table. See Setting an Alias Table as Active for further information.
For Unicode-mode applications, setting up a separate alias table for each user language enables different users to view member names in their own language. For additional information about the relevance of alias tables and Unicode, see About the Essbase Implementation of Unicode.
You can provide an alias for any member. Alias names must follow the same rules as member names. See Naming Restrictions for Dimensions, Members, and Aliases.
You can use any of the following methods to create aliases in an existing alias table:
To manually assign an alias to a member while editing an outline, see “Creating Aliases for Dimensions and Members” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
To use dimension build and a data source to add aliases to an alias table, see “Defining a Rules File for Adding Aliases” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
To import alias values from an alias table source file created in a pre-defined format, see Importing and Exporting Alias Tables.
Named alias tables enable you to display different aliases in different situations. For general information about alias tables, see Alias Tables. While working with alias tables, you can perform the following actions:
An alias table contains a list of aliases to use for members in the outline. The following restrictions apply to alias tables:
The naming conventions for alias table names are the same as those for dimensions. See Naming Restrictions for Dimensions, Members, and Aliases.
Name-length restrictions depend on the Unicode-related mode of the application; see Limits.
To create an alias table, see “Creating Alias Tables” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
A new alias table is empty. To add aliases to an alias table and assign them to members, see Creating Aliases.
The active alias table contains the aliases that Essbase currently displays in the outline.
You can delete an alias table from the outline or you can clear all the aliases from an alias table without deleting the alias table itself. To clear or delete alias tables, see “Deleting and Clearing Alias Tables” in the Essbase Administration Services Online Help.
You can import a correctly formatted text file into Essbase as an alias table. Alias table import files have the .alt extension. Alias table import files should have the following structure:
The first line in the file starts with $ALT_NAME. Add one or two spaces followed by the name of the alias table. If the alias table name contains a blank character, enclose the name in single quotation marks.
Each line between the first and the last lines contains two values that are separated by one or more spaces or tabs. The first value must be the name of an existing outline member; the second value is the alias for the member.
Any member or alias name that contains a blank or underscore must be enclosed in double quotation marks.
The following is an example of an alias table import file:
You can also export an alias table from the Essbase outline to a text file. The export file contains aliases and the corresponding member names—qualified member names for duplicate members.
By default, Essbase calculates outlines from the bottom up—first calculating the values for the children and then the values for the parent. Sometimes, however, the values of the children may be based on the values of the parent or the values of other members in the outline. To obtain the correct values for these members, Essbase must first calculate the outline and then re-calculate the members that are dependent on the calculated values of other members. The members that are calculated on the second pass through the outline are called two-pass calculations.
For more information on bottom-up calculations, see Using Bottom-Up Calculation.
For example, to calculate the ratio between Sales and Margin, Essbase needs first to calculate Margin, which is a parent member based on its children, including Sales. To ensure that the ratio is calculated based on a freshly calculated Margin figure, tag the Margin % ratio member as a two-pass calculation. Essbase calculates the database once and then calculates the ratio member again. This calculation produces the correct result.
Even though two-pass calculation is a property that you can give to any non-attribute member, it works only on the following members:
If two-pass calculation is assigned to other members, Essbase ignores it.
You can apply formulas to standard dimensions and members. You cannot set formulas for attribute dimensions and their members. The formula determines how Essbase calculates the outline data. See Developing Formulas.
You can create names for generations and levels in an outline, such as a word or phrase that describes the generation or level. For example, you might create a generation name called Cities for all cities in the outline. For information about generations and levels, see Dimension and Member Relationships.
Use generation and level names in calculation scripts or report scripts wherever you need to specify either a list of member names or generation or level numbers. For example, you could limit a calculation in a calculation script to all members in a specific generation. See Developing Calculation Scripts for information about developing calculation scripts.
You can define only one name for each generation or level. When you name generations and levels, follow the same naming rules as for members. See Naming Restrictions for Dimensions, Members, and Aliases.
You can create your own user-defined attributes (UDA) for members. A UDA is a word or phrase about a member. For example, you might create a UDA called Debit. Use UDAs in the following places:
Calculation scripts. After you define a UDA, you can query a member for its UDA in a calculation script. For example, you could multiply all members with the UDA Debit by -1 so that they display as either positive or negative (depending on how the data is currently stored). See Developing Calculation Scripts.
Data loading. You can change the sign of the data as it is loaded into the database based on its UDA. See Flipping Field Signs.
If you want to perform a calculation, selectively retrieve data based on attribute values, or provide full crosstab, pivot, and drill-down support in the spreadsheet, create attribute dimensions instead of UDAs. See Comparing Attributes and UDAs.
Understand these rules when creating UDAs:
A UDA name can be the same as a member, alias, level, or generation name. When you name UDAs, follow the same naming rules as for members. See Naming Restrictions for Dimensions, Members, and Aliases.
A UDA applies to the specified member only. Descendants and ancestors of the member do not automatically receive the same UDA.
You can add comments to dimensions and members. A comment can be up to 255 characters long. Outline Editor displays comments to the right of the dimension or member in the following format:
/* comment */