When you define members of standard dimensions, Essbase automatically tags the members with the + (plus sign representing addition) consolidation operator, meaning that during consolidation members are added. As appropriate, you can change a member consolidation property to one of the operators shown in Table 7, Consolidation Operators.
Consolidation is the most frequently used calculation in Essbase. This topic uses the Product dimension to illustrate consolidations.
The TBC application has several consolidation paths:
Individual products roll up to product families, and product families consolidate into Product. The TBC outline also requires multiple consolidation paths; some products must consolidate in multiple categories.
States roll up to regions, and regions consolidate into Market.
Months roll up into quarters, and quarters consolidate into Year.
The following topics discuss consolidation in greater detail:
Consolidation operators define how Essbase rolls up data for each member in a branch to the parent. For example, using the default addition (+) operator, Essbase adds 100‑10, 100‑20, and 100‑30 and stores the result in their parent, 100, as shown in Figure 33, TBC Product Dimension.
The Product dimension contains mostly addition (+) operators, which indicate that each group of members is added and rolled up to the parent. Diet has a tilde (~) operator, which indicates that Essbase does not include the Diet member in the consolidation to the parent, Product. The Diet member consists entirely of members that are shared. The TBC product management group wants to be able to isolate Diet drinks in reports, so TBC created a separate Diet member that does not impact overall consolidation.