Lineage Overview

The lineage work area is a graphical representation of the lineage of a metadata element, enabling you to see the relationships among metadata elements in the catalog.

The lineage work area enables you to view information ranging from which data source table and column the element comes from to the deployed cubes that the element is used in. The lineage work area can help you quickly understand the potential impact of changes to the element; for example, the effect of removing a hierarchy from the cube schema. You can also see the history of each element.

The lineage work area displays the chain of elements related to the selected element that you have chosen. For example, a standard hierarchy would show these related objects:

The hierarchy columns, including the caption and key bindings for each column on which the hierarchy was built
The members within the hierarchy, including user-defined members
The cube schemas in which the hierarchy is used
The Essbase models created from the cube schemas that use the hierarchy
The Essbase cubes that were deployed from the Essbase models (created from the cube schemas that use the hierarchy)

Figure 17, Lineage for a hierarchy named “Product” shows an example lineage diagram.

Figure 17. Lineage for a hierarchy named “Product”

Using the TBC sample database tables, the lineage diagram for a hierarchy called “Product” shows, in the left direction, that the hierarchy was created using the columns “Family” and “SKU”. Further to the left, it shows that the “Family” column comes from the Productdim table , and “SKU” from the Product table. Both tables are in the TBC database. Moving in the right direction, the hierarchy “Product” was used in the cs1 and cs1_copy cube schemas. The cs1 cube schema was used to create an Essbase model named cs1Model. The cs_copy cube schema was used to create an Essbase model called cs1_copyModel. Finally, cs1_copyModel was deployed to a cube called ln1.1.

Lineage can also show you when the caption and key bindings for a dimension element differ. Figure 18, Lineage where key binding and caption binding are different shows a dimension element with different caption and key bindings.

Figure 18. Lineage where key binding and caption binding are different

The dimension element, “FAMILY_DIFF”, shows two lineage elements: the “FAMILY” column as the caption binding, and the “FAMILYID” column as the key binding. Both columns are from the FAMILY table.

Figure 19, Lineage where key binding and caption binding are the same or key binding is set to “Delayed” shows a dimension element where either the caption and key bindings are the same or the key binding expression for the element is set to Delayed.

Figure 19. Lineage where key binding and caption binding are the same or key binding is set to “Delayed”

The dimension element, “FAMILY”, shows only one lineage element: the “FAMILY” column. This means either that both the caption and key binding expressions are the same for the element; or that the key binding expression of the element is set to “delayed”. The “FAMILY” column is from the FAMILY table.

Note that the illustration in Figure 19, Lineage where key binding and caption binding are the same or key binding is set to “Delayed” can also mean that the key binding for the element is “delayed”. If you right-click the FAMILY column and the pop-up menu displays only the option, View Sample With Caption Binding, then the key binding expression for the element is set to Delayed. If you right-click and see only the View Sample Data option, then the caption and key binding expressions are the same.

To display the lineage of an element, see Opening the Lineage Work Area.

For information on optional tasks that you can perform in the lineage work area, see Using the Lineage Work Area.