Flat dimensions are suitable when no parent-child relationships would normally exist between the dimension values. For example, dimension values named "Blue" and "Green" cannot logically be in a parent-child relationship; colors are not parents of each other in any ordinary sense. Thus, dimension values such as "Red", "Green", and "Blue" could be added to a flat dimension named "Color", as shown in the following diagram:
As this diagram shows, all dimension values in a flat dimension except the root are leaf values, and navigation is possible only from the root to a leaf.
The leaf dimension values of flat dimensions can represent products. They can also be used to refine an existing navigation state. For example, if the navigation state is "women's winter jackets", selecting the dimension value "blue" in the flat dimension shown above refines the navigation state to "women's blue winter jackets".
Flat dimensions and their dimension values are generated automatically when you load source data records into CAS. For information about how to configure the automatic generation of flat dimensions, see Creating dimensions, Endeca record properties, and Endeca records.
