Create Attribute Dimensions and Members

Attributes describe characteristics of Essbase data, such as the size and color of products. You can use attributes to group and analyze members of dimensions based on their characteristics.

For example, you can analyze product profitability based on size or packaging, and you can make more effective conclusions by incorporating market attributes, such as the population size of each market region, into your analysis.

Workflow for manually building attribute dimensions:

When manually working with attributes in the Redwood Interface, use the outline editor, the Add member dialog box, and the member inspector in the outline editor.

  1. Create dimensions with the dimension type of attribute. While in the Add member dialog box,
    1. Set the attribute dimension type (text, numeric, Boolean, or date).
    2. Associate a sparse standard dimension with each attribute dimension. Select the standard dimension you want to associate from the Associated dimension menu. This defines the base dimensions.
  2. Add members to the attribute dimensions.
  3. Save the outline.
  4. Associate members of the base dimension with members of the attribute dimension; the base members must all be from the same level in the base dimension:
    1. Click Edit Image of the Edit outline icon from the outline toolbar., select a base member to associate with the attribute dimension, and select Inspect Image of the Inspect icon from the outline toolbar..
    2. Click Attributes.
    3. For each attribute dimension listed, under Attribute value begin typing and then select a specific attribute member.
    4. Repeat for each base member you want to associate to an attribute member.
  5. Save the outline.

When manually working with attributes in the Classic Web Interface, use the outline editor, and the member inspector in the outline editor.

  1. Create attribute dimensions.
  2. Tag the dimensions as attribute dimensions and set the attribute dimension type (text, numeric, Boolean, or date).

    Use the member inspector, General tab to set the dimension as an attribute dimension, and to set the attribute dimension type.

  3. Add members to attribute dimensions.
  4. Associate a standard dimension with an attribute dimension, thereby defining the base dimension of the attribute dimension. Use the General tab in the member inspector to associate an attribute dimension to a base dimension.
  5. Select members of the base dimension and use the member inspector, Attributes tab to associate them with members of the attribute dimension

When creating an attribute dimension, if you do not select a base dimension, a base dimension is associated with the newly created attribute dimension by default. The associated base dimension is either a newly created last sparse dimension or the last existing sparse dimension.

For example, if you create two sparse dimensions, dim1 and dim2, and then create an attribute dimension attr1, attr1 is associated with dim2 (the last sparse dimension that was created). If no sparse dimension was created recently, attr1 is associated with the last sparse dimension.

See Work with Essbase Attributes.