Comparing Attribute and Standard Dimensions

In general, attribute dimensions and their members are similar to standard dimensions and their members. You can provide aliases and member comments for attributes. Attribute dimensions can include hierarchies, and you can name generations and levels. You can perform the same spreadsheet operations on attribute dimensions and members as on standard dimensions and members; for example, to analyze data from different perspectives, you can retrieve, pivot, and drill down in the spreadsheet.

Table 18 describes major differences between attribute and standard dimensions and their members.

Table 18. Differences Between Attribute and Standard Dimensions

Functionality

Attribute Dimensions

Standard Dimensions

Storage

Sparse. An attribute dimension's base dimension also must be sparse

Can be dense or sparse

Storage property

Can be Dynamic Calc only. Therefore, not stored in the database. The outline does not display this property.

Can be Store Data, Dynamic Calc and Store, Dynamic Calc, Never Share, or Label Only

Position in outline

Must be the last dimensions in the outline

Must be above all attribute dimensions in the outline

Partitions

Cannot be defined along attribute dimensions, but you can use attributes to define a partition on a base dimension

Can be defined along standard dimensions

Formulas (on members)

Cannot be associated

Can be associated

Shared members

Not allowed

Allowed

Two-pass calculation member property

Not available

Available

Two-pass calculation with runtime formula

If a member formula contains a runtime-dependent function associated with an attribute member name, and the member with the formula is tagged as two-pass, calculation skips the member and issues a warning message. Runtime-dependent functions include: @CURRMBR, @PARENT, @PARENTVAL, @SPARENTVAL, @MDPARENTVAL, @ANCEST, @ANCESTVAL, @SANCESTVAL, and @MDANCESTVAL.

See Understanding Two-Pass Calculations on Attribute Dimensions.

Calculation is performed on standard members with runtime formulas and tagged two-pass.

Two-pass, multiple dimensions: Calculation order

Order of calculation of members tagged two-pass depends on order in outline. The last dimension is calculated last.

Calculation result is not dependent on outline order for members tagged two-pass in multiple dimensions.

Two-pass calculation with no member formula

Calculation skipped, warning message issued. Therefore, member intersection of two-pass tagged members and upper-level members may return different results from calculation on standard dimensions.

See Understanding Two-Pass Calculations on Attribute Dimensions.

Available

Dense Dynamic Calc members in nonexisting stored blocks

Calculations skip dense dimensions if they are on nonexisting stored blocks.

For attributes to work on dense members, data blocks for the dense members must exist. When retrieving data on a dense member that has a Dynamic Calc formula and no attributes, Essbase dynamically creates the data block and returns a value. However, if the Dynamic Calc dense member has an attribute, doing a retrieve on the attribute member results in #MISSING, because Essbase skips the dynamic calculation on the dense member and, therefore, the data block is not created.

To identify nonexisting stored blocks, export the database or run a query to find out whether the block has data.

Available

UDAs on members

Not allowed

Allowed

Consolidations

For all members, calculated through the Attribute Calculations dimension members: Sum, Count, Min, Max, and Avg. Consolidation operators in the outline are ignored during attribute calculations.

Consolidation operation indicated by assigning the desired consolidation symbol to each member

Member selection facilitated by Level 0 member typing

Available types include text, numeric, Boolean, and date.

All members treated as text

Associations

Must be associated with a base dimension

N/A

Spreadsheet drill-downs

List the base dimension data associated with the selected attribute. For example, drilling down on the attribute Glass displays sales for each product packaged in glass, where Product is the base dimension for the Pkg Type attribute dimension.

List lower or sibling levels of detail in the standard dimensions. For example, drilling down on QTR1 displays a list of products and their sales for that quarter.