1. Administering Profitability and Cost Management
  2. Creating and Migrating Profitability and Cost Management Applications
  3. Creating, Importing, and Exporting Applications in the Profitability Application Console
  4. Preparing Flat Files and Templates for Application Updates
  5. Preparing Flat Files for Each Dimension

Preparing Flat Files for Each Dimension

You can use dimension flat files to update an existing or new Profitability and Cost Management application. If existing members are omitted from the file, they are removed during the update. See the following topics for information about creating flat files:

To add or replace dimensions in a Profitability and Cost Management application using flat files, prepare the files as follows:

  1. In a text editor, create one flat file for each dimension, following the format described in this section. Each flat file most completely define the dimension. To import the files see Creating Applications with Dimensions from Flat Files.

    Dimension flat files are text files that contain the following rows::

    • First row: A header record that specifies the order of dimension and member properties

    • Second row: A dimension data record with values for the properties

    • Third through last row: Individual member data records with values for the properties

      Note:

      Because member entries need to be in the same order as the final outline, parent members must be defined before their children. The order of the members in the file will be the same order as the dimension tree is displayed within Profitability and Cost Management (for example, in the Member Selector).

  2. Create dimension and member header records following these rules:

    • You can specify the properties in any order, separated by commas.

    • Multi-value properties should be enclosed in double quotes, with the individual values of the multi-value property separated by commas. For example, a user-defined attribute (UDA) property can have multiple values:

      ,"myUDA1, myUDA2, myUDA3",

    • Commas are not allowed within any single value. Do not use them in member names, do not use them in UDA values, and so on.

    • For other naming conventions, see Essbase Naming Conventions.

    • As explained previously, double quotes are used to delimit multi-value properties in flat files. For this reason, do not use double quotes to delimit member names within an aggregate storage (ASO) formula definition. Instead, you should use square brackets, [ ], to delimit member names where necessary.

    • Property names are not case-sensitive: For example, the following names are all handled the same: name, NAME, Name.

    • Not all properties are required for every row in the flat file. Properties can be ignored or null, indicated by no value between the commas where that property would ordinarily be listed, such as: ,,

      For example, in a member record, any dimension properties from the header would be ignored.

    • Properties without a value or with an invalid value will be defaulted for required properties.

    • Comments are supported (see About Flat File Comments).

    • You don’t need to import a file for the Rule and Balance dimensions; members are created automatically. You cannot specify aliases for any Rule dimension members. The dimension member names for Rule and Balance dimension members are defined programmatically and translated.

    • The dimension sort and solve order precedence is handled as follows: Processing is based on alphabetical order using Dimension Name, except that Attribute dimensions are always last (and ordered alphabetically from there). If the Member Solve Order property is used, it overrides other considerations.

  3. Before importing to update dimensions, upload the flat files into the Inbox using File Explorer (Transferring Files with the File Explorer.