Loading Data and Building Dimensions

  To load data or build dimensions:

1. From Enterprise View or a custom view, select the database.

2. Right-click and select Load data.

   The Data Load dialog box is displayed. The first line in the data sources table is populated with the default settings (data file, load only). You can edit the first row or add a row (by clicking Insert).

3. If you want to populate the data-source table with information from a previous data load or dimension build, click Open, and locate and select the file that contains the information.

4. If you want to populate the data source table manually:

   1. Click in the Data Source Type column and select Data file or SQL.

   2. Click in the Mode column and select Load only, Build only, or Both.

   3. If you selected SQL, in SQL User Name and SQL Password, enter the database user name and password.

   4. If you selected Data file, click Find Data File, and locate and select one or more data files (from the file system or from an Essbase Server.

      Multiple files are added to the data-source table in the order that they are listed in the Open dialog box, and data sources are loaded in the order that they are listed in the data-source table.

      You can reduce load time by loading data sources from the Essbase Server computer (rather than from a client computer).

   5. If you want to use a rules file with the selected data source, click Find Rules File to find and select one or more rules files (from the file system or from Essbase Server If you select multiple rules files, they are added to the table in the same order that they appear in the Open dialog box. The files are added consecutively, starting with the first selected row in the table.

      You can associate a different rules file with each data source.

   6. If you are loading data only and you want the data load to stop if an error occurs, select the check box in the Abort on Error column.

   7. If you want errors that occur during the load or build to be written to an error log file, in the Error File column, specify the full path to the location where you want errors to be written.

   8. If you want new errors to overwrite the contents of an existing error file, select the check box in the Overwrite column.

   9. Repeat these steps to select multiple data sources, rules files, and settings.

   10. If you want to save the information you have specified in the data sources table, click Save to save the information to an XML file on the client file system.

5. For dimension builds, if you want to perform a deferred-restructure dimension build, select Deferred-restructure dimension build.

6. For aggregate storage databases only:

   • If you are loading data and values exist in the database, select an option from the Data load values drop-down list for overwriting existing values, adding to existing values, subtracting from existing values, or replacing the contents of the database.

   • Select whether to ignore missing values and zero values in the data source.

   • Select whether to load the data as a new slice in the database.

7. If you want to execute the data load or dimension build in the background so that you can work in the console as the load or build processes, select Execute in background.

8. Click OK.

   Essbase runs the data load or dimension build and displays the Data Load Results dialog box, where status messages are displayed.

   If you chose to execute the data load or dimension build in the background, an ID for the process is displayed. If a load or build includes multiple data sources, it is treated as a single background process. You can use the ID to track the status of the background process in the Background Process Status window.