MDX Custom Properties

MDX in Essbase supports three types of custom properties: attribute properties, UDA properties, and alias-table-name properties.

Attribute properties are defined by the attribute dimensions in an outline. In the Sample Basic database, the [Pkg Type] attribute dimension describes the packaging characteristics of members in the Product dimension. This information can be queried in MDX using the property name [Pkg Type].

Attribute properties are defined only for specific dimensions and only for a specific level in each dimension. For example, in the Sample Basic outline, [Ounces] is an attribute property defined only for members in the Product dimension, and this property has valid values only for the level-0 members of the Product dimension. The [Ounces] property does not exist for other dimensions, such as Market. The [Ounces] property for a non level-0 member in the Product dimension is a NULL value. The attribute properties in an outline are identified by the names of attribute dimensions in that outline.

The custom properties also include UDAs. For example, [Major Market] is a UDA property defined on Market dimension members. It returns a TRUE value if [Major Market] UDA is defined for a member, and FALSE otherwise.

Custom alias-table-name properties enable you to query for alias table names used by each member returned in the output.