Siebel Analytics Server Administration Guide > Creating and Administering the Business Model and Mapping Layer in a Repository >

About Dimensions and Hierarchical Levels

In a business model, a dimension represents a hierarchical organization of logical columns (attributes) belonging to a single logical dimension table. Common dimensions might be time periods, products, markets, customers, suppliers, promotion conditions, raw materials, manufacturing plants, transportation methods, media types, and time of day. Dimensions exist in the Business Model and Mapping (logical) layer and end users do not see them.

In each dimension, you organize attributes into hierarchical levels. These levels represent the organizational rules, and reporting needs required by your business. They provide the structure (metadata) that the Siebel Analytics Server uses to drill into and across dimensions to get more detailed views of the data.

Dimension hierarchical levels are used to perform the following actions:

• Aggregate navigation
• Configure level-based measure calculations (see Level-Based Measure Calculations Example)
• Determine what attributes appear when Siebel Analytics Web users drill down in their data requests