Naming Restrictions for Dimensions, Members, and Aliases

When naming dimensions, members, and aliases, follow these rules:

  • For non-Unicode mode dimensions, members, or aliases, use no more than 80 single byte characters. For Unicode-mode dimensions, members, or aliases, use no more than 80 characters (multi-byte characters are counted as a single character).

  • Distinguish between upper and lower case only if case sensitivity is enabled.

  • Do not use HTML tags in member names, dimension names, aliases, and descriptions.

  • Do not use quotation marks, brackets, back slashes, or tabs. Brackets are permitted but not recommended in block storage outlines. They cause errors when converting to aggregate storage outlines.

  • To begin dimension or member names, do not use these characters:

    • at signs

    • backslashes

    • brackets

    • commas

    • dashes, hyphens, or minus signs

    • equal signs

    • less than signs

    • parentheses

    • periods

    • plus signs

    • quotation marks

    • underscores

    • vertical bars

  • Do not place spaces at the beginning or end of names. Essbase ignores such spaces.

  • Do not use forward slashes in member names.

  • For time periods in custom calendars, do not use spaces in prefixes.

  • Do not use these words as names of dimensions, members, or aliases:

    • Calculation script commands, operators, and keywords; for a list of commands, see the Essbase product documentation.

    • Report Writer commands; for a list of commands, see the Oracle Essbase Technical Reference.

    • Function names and function arguments.

    • Names of other dimensions and members (unless the member is shared), and generation names, level names, and aliases in the database.

    • Reserved words: for a list of the reserved words for Financial Management, Profitability and Cost Management, Essbase, and Planning, see these guides:

      • Oracle Hyperion Financial Management Administrator's Guide

      • Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management Administrator's Guide

      • Oracle Essbase Technical Reference

      • Oracle Hyperion Planning Administrator's Guide

      ALL AND ASSIGN AVERAGE CALC CALCMBR COPYFORWARD CROSSDIM CURMBRNAME DIM DIMNAME DIV DYNAMIC EMPTYPARM EQ EQOP EXCEPT EXP EXPERROR FLOAT FUNCTION GE GEN

      GENRANGE GROUP GT ID IDERROR INTEGER LE LEVELRANGE LOOPBLOCK LOOPPARMS LT MBR MBRNAME MBRONLY MINUS MISSING MUL MULOP NE NON NONINPUT NOT

      OR PAREN PARENPARM PERCENT PLUS RELOP SET SKIPBOTH SKIPMISSING SKIPNONE SKIPZERO TO TOLOCALRATE TRAILMISSING TRAILSUM UMINUS UPPER VARORXMBR XMBRONLY $$UNIVERSE$$ #MISSING #MI

    • If Dynamic Time Series is enabled, do not use History, Year, Season, Period, Quarter, Month, Week, or Day.