Understanding Dimensions

A dimension is a collection of people, places, events, or things for which you want to keep data. Each member of the dimension is called a dimension member.

See Understanding Dimension Members.

To keep data for each member of the dimension, attach the dimension to one or more data cubes. For example, to keep sales data for multiple products, attach a PRODUCTS dimension to a SALES data cube. To track the cost of goods for each product, attach the PRODUCTS dimension to a COST_OF_GOODS data cube.

Note: When a cube collection is mapped to either a Writable-only record or a record with the Readable and Writable attributes, all data cubes in the cube collection should share the same set of dimensions.

Because dimensions receive data from fields, it is important to correctly set the attributes of field definitions to ensure compatibility. You can map fields with the following attributes to dimensions:

  • Char

  • Number

  • Signed Number

  • Date

  • Date Time

Note: The limit on total number of dimensions in a model is 99.