About Attributes

Definition: Attributes

Attributes establish relationships between the values of two dimensions in such a way that the values of one dimension (a grouping dimension) can be used to group multiple values of the other dimension (a base dimension). Each value of the grouping dimension serves as a characteristic, or attribute, that applies to multiple values of the base dimension.

Using attributes

Attributes facilitate the process of selecting data for documents. When selecting data by attribute, you can choose any number of values of the base dimension by specifying a single value of the grouping dimension. This eliminates the need to specify each value of the base dimension in a separate operation.

Grouping options

You can create attributes that group related data in many different ways, such as by product type, by time period, or even by user. For example, an administrator could create an attribute called BudgetWest that includes all Budget workstation users in the West division. The administrator could then distribute data specific to Budget Workstation users in the West division, without having to select them all individually.

Who can work with attributes?

Administrators

As an administrator, it is your responsibility to maintain the attributes that your users access in the shared database that you administer. When you create or modify an attribute and want other users to be able to access it, you must distribute the attribute to the shared database and to other users.

Budget workstation users

As a Budget workstation user, you can create and modify attributes for your personal use. You can modify attributes that your administrator has created for you, but you cannot save the modifications unless you assign a new name to the modified attribute, retaining the original.