Creating and Modifying Attributes

Creating attributes

You choose Attribute from the Maintain menu to create an attribute. This opens the Maintain Attribute dialog box. From this starting point, you can perform the following functions:

• Name the attribute.

• Specify the attribute type. You can choose One-to-Many or Many-to-Many.

• Select the dimension whose values are to form the basis of the attribute.

• For a one-to -many attribute, select the grouping dimension for the attribute. This is the dimension whose values you want to associate with the base dimension.

• For a many-to-many attribute, select the second dimension for the attribute.

When you choose OK, the Edit Attribute dialog box appears. Here, you select dimension values for the dimensions in the attribute definition. You also set the relationships between the dimension values.

• For a one-to-many attribute, you set the relationships between the selected aggregate and base dimension values.

• For a many-to-many attribute, you set the relationships between the value of the first dimension and the value of the second dimension.

Example: Relationships for one-to-many attribute

The following illustration shows an example of the Edit Attribute dialog box with information for a one-to-many attribute, Product by Unit Type.

Example: Relationships for many-to-many attribute

The following illustration shows an example of the Edit Attribute dialog box with information for a many-to-many attribute, Product by Monitor Type Availability.

Modifying attributes

You choose Attributes from the Maintain menu to modify information for attributes. This opens the Maintain Attributes dialog box, from which you can perform the following functions:

• You can give an attribute a new name.

• You can delete an attribute from your personal database. As an administrator, you can also delete an attribute from the shared database by deleting it from your personal database, and then distributing this change to the shared database.

• You can move an attribute to a new position in the list of attributes maintained by the system.

• You can edit the links between dimension values.

Related information

For more information about working with attributes, search for the following topics in the Financial Analyzer Help system:

"Creating a Many-to-Many Attribute"

"Creating a One-to-Many Attribute"

"Deleting Attributes"

"Editing Many-to-Many Attributes"

"Editing a One-to-Many Attributes"

"Renaming Attributes"