Understanding Levels

A level is an OLAP metadata entity. This means that it is a logical object, identified by name and owner, within the OLAP 2 Catalog.

A level is a child entity of a dimension entity. Each dimension must have at least one level. A level is also normally a child entity of one or more hierarchy entities. If a level is not assigned to a hierarchy, the OLAP 2 Catalog considers its hierarchy to be hidden.

Each level maps to one or more columns in a dimension table. In a star schema, the columns are in the same table. In a snowflake schema, the columns are in separate tables. If the dimension is stored in a parent/child table instead of a level-based table, levels map to columns in the view you can generate via the CWM2_OLAP_PC_TRANSFORM package. Similarly, if the dimension is stored in an analytic workspace, levels map to columns in the view you can generate via the AWCONVERT package.