CAS can automatically generate dimension values for a dimension based on property values in the data records. This is useful if you want to automatically populate a flat dimension with a large number of dimension values.
For
example, in the Discover Electronics application, the Brand Name dimension has
its dimension values automatically generated. If a data record contains a
product.brand.name property, then CAS automatically
generates a dimension value based on that property. This feature dramatically
reduces the amount of time it takes to create dimension values. However,
automatically generated dimensions are always flat.
To automatically generate dimension values in your application, set the
isAutoGen property to
true for a dimension and then run a full crawl
configured to produce MDEX-compatible output. The Dimension Value Id Manager
generates the dimension values (names and IDs) and stores them for each
automatically generated dimension. If you later modify the
isAutoGen property to
false and run a full crawl, this state is deleted. CAS
does not process changes to the
isAutoGen property in incremental crawls.
Note
Automatically generated dimension values are still stored by CAS
even if the properties on which they are based are removed from the data
records. (This is to ensure that content spotlights do not fail if they depend
on the generated dimension values.) The dimension values are only deleted when
the
isAutoGen property is set to
false or the dimension itself is deleted.
You cannot manually create dimension values for a dimension and also automatically generate dimension values. This situation results in an error during a crawl.
You set the
isAutoGen property to
true using either the Configuration Import API or
the Index Configuration Command-line Utility. For details on the
utility, see "Modifying Index Configuration for an Application" in the
Oracle Commerce Guided Search Administrator's Guide.
