Determining How Members Store Data Values

You can determine how and when Essbase stores the data values for a member. For example, you can tell Essbase to calculate the value for a member only when a user requests it, and then discard the data value. Each storage property is described in the following table.

Table 6-4 Choosing Storage Properties

Storage Property	Behavior
Store	Stores the data value with the member.
Dynamic Calc	Does not calculate the data value until a user requests it, and then discards the data value.
Label only	Label Only members are for grouping or labeling other members. No data is stored in the database for Label Only members.
Shared member	Shares values between members. For example, in the Sample.Basic database, the 100-20 member is stored under the 100 parent and shared under Diet parent.
Never share	Does not allow members to be shared implicitly. Members tagged as Never share can only be explicitly shared. To explicitly share a member, create the shared member with the same name and tag it as shared.

To set member storage properties, use application workbooks. See Understanding Dimension Worksheets.

Stored Members

Stored members contain calculated values that are stored with the member in the database after calculation. By default, members are set as stored.

Dynamic Calculation Members

When a member is Dynamic Calc, Essbase does not calculate the value for that member until a user requests it. After the user views it, Essbase does not store the value for that member.

Essbase automatically tags members of attribute dimensions as Dynamic Calc. You cannot change this setting.

See Dynamically Calculating Data Values.

Label Only Members

Label only members have no associated data. Use them to group members or to ease navigation and reporting from Smart View. Typically, you should give label only members the “no consolidation” property. See Setting Member Consolidation.

You cannot associate attributes with label only members. If you tag a base dimension member that has attribute associations as label only, Essbase removes the attribute associations and displays a warning message.

A descendent of a label only member cannot be tagged as Dynamic Calc. In the following example, when verifying the outline, Essbase issues an error message indicating that ChildB cannot be tagged as label only:


ParentA = Label Only
   ChildB = Label Only
      DescendantC = Dynamic Calc

Tagging DescendantC as Store Data resolves the issue.

Shared Members

The data values associated with a shared member come from another member with the same name, called the prototype member. The shared member stores a pointer to data contained in the prototype member, and the data is stored only once. To define a member as shared, a prototype member of the same name must exist. For example, in the Sample.Basic database, the 100-20 member under 100 stores the data for that member. The 100-20 member under Diet points to that value.

Shared members typically are used to calculate the same member across multiple parents; for example, to calculate a Diet Cola member in both the 100 and Diet parents.

Using shared members lets you use members repeatedly throughout a dimension. Essbase stores the data value only once, but it displays in multiple locations. Storing the data value only once saves space and improves processing efficiency.

Read the following sections to learn more about shared members.

Note:

Members with the same name may be duplicate members instead of shared members. See Creating and Working With Duplicate Member Outlines.

Understanding the Rules for Shared Members

Rules when creating shared members:

Shared members must be in the same dimension as their prototype member. For example, both 100-20 members in the Sample.Basic database are in the Product dimension.
The prototype member must precede the shared member in the outline order.
Shared members cannot have children.
An unlimited number of shared members can have the same name.
UDAs or formulas cannot be assigned to shared members.
You can create a shared member for a member with a duplicate member name.
Attributes cannot be associated with shared members.
If accounts properties are assigned to shared members, the values for those accounts properties are taken from the prototype member, even if the accounts properties on the shared member are changed.
Aliases can be assigned to shared members.
If an alias for a shared member is empty, Essbase uses the stored member’s alias.
If you assign an alias for a shared member and you change the alias for a prototype member, the shared member’s alias doesn’t change.
A prototype member must be located in a dimension before its shared member.
Avoid complex relationships between prototype and shared members that will be part of an attribute calculation, or a calculation may return unexpected results. See Understanding Attribute Calculation and Shared Members.

Note:

You cannot place a shared member and its prototype member under the same parent. In a duplicate member outline, siblings must be unique.

In grid clients (for example, Smart View), shared members can easily be differentiated from their prototype members, because you can specify for them to be displayed with a qualified name (for example, [Parent].[Child]). Shared members can be displayed with qualified names even if you have not set the outline to enable duplicate member names. Additionally, you can use qualified member names to search for shared members in the grid or using member selection.

Understanding Shared Member Retrieval During Drill-Down

Essbase retrieves shared members during drill-down, depending on their location in the spreadsheet. Essbase follows three rules during this type of retrieval:

Essbase retrieves prototype members (not their shared member counterparts) by default.
Essbase retrieves from the bottom of a spreadsheet first.
If the parent of a shared member is a sibling of the prototype member counterpart of one of the shared members, Essbase retrieves the prototype member.

Example of Shared Members from a Single Dimension

If you create a test dimension with all shared members based on the prototype members of the dimension East from the Sample.Basic outline, the outline would be similar to the one shown in Figure 6-1:

Figure 6-1 Shared Members from a Single Dimension

This image shows an outline in which the test member consists of shared members from the East member. The test and East members contain the same siblings: New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

Zooming out on a shared member returns the shared parent, not the prototype member. For example, if you zoom out on Florida, Essbase returns the shared parent, test.

If you retrieve only the children of East, all results are from prototype members because Essbase retrieves prototype members by default.

If, however, you retrieve data with the children of test above it in the spreadsheet, Essbase retrieves the shared members:

New York
Massachusetts
Florida
Connecticut
New Hampshire
test

If you move test above its last two children, Essbase retrieves the first three children as shared members, but the last two as prototype members. Similarly, if you insert a member in the middle of the list above which was not a sibling of the shared members (for example, California inserted between Florida and Connecticut), Essbase retrieves shared members only between the nonsibling and the parent (in this case, between California and test).

Example of Retrieval with Crossed Generation Shared Members

You can modify the Sample.Basic outline to create a shared member whose prototype member counterpart is a sibling to its own parent, as shown in Figure 6-2:

Figure 6-2 Retrieval with Crossed Generation Shared Members

This image shows an outline in which the test member consists of siblings that are shared members from the East member (New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Connecticut, and New Hampshire) and a shared member, west, whose prototype member counterpart (West) is a sibling to its own parent (test).

If you create a spreadsheet with shared members in this order, Essbase retrieves all the shared members, except it retrieves the prototype member West, not the shared member west:

West
New York
Massachusetts
Connecticut
New Hampshire
test

Essbase retrieves the members in this order because test is a parent of west and a sibling of its prototype member counterpart, West.

Understanding Implied Sharing

The shared member property defines a shared data relationship explicitly. Some members are shared even if you do not explicitly set them as shared. These members are implied shared members.

Essbase assumes (or implies) a shared member relationship in the following situations:

A parent has only one child. In this situation, the parent and the child contain the same data. Essbase ignores the consolidation property on the child and stores the data only once—thus the parent has an implied shared relationship with the child. In the following example, the parent 500 has only one child, 500-10, so the parent shares the value of that child:
```
500 (+)
  500-10 (+)
```
A parent has only one child that consolidates to the parent. If the parent has four children, but three are marked as no consolidation, the parent and child that consolidates contain the same data. Essbase ignores the consolidation property on the child and stores the data only once—thus the parent has an implied shared relationship with the child. In the following example, the parent 500 has only one child, 500‑10, that rolls up to it. The other children are marked as No Consolidate(~), so the parent implicitly shares the value of 500‑10.
```
500 (+)
  500-10 (+)
  500-20 (~)
  500-30 (~)
```

If you do not want a member to be shared implicitly, mark the parent as Never Share so that the data is duplicated instead.