Understanding How Essbase Processes a Rules File

Sometimes, you can track down problems with dimension builds by understanding how Essbase initializes the rules file and processes the data source.

Essbase performs the following steps to initialize a rules file:

  1. Validates the rules file against the associated outline.

  2. Validates the dimensions. This process includes ensuring that the build method and field types are compatible and that each dimension name is unique. Member names must be either unique or shared.

  3. Adds new dimensions defined in the rules file to the outline.

  4. Reads header records specified in the data source.

Then Essbase performs the following operations on each record of the data source during a data load or dimension build:

  1. Sets the file delimiters for all records.

  2. Applies field operations to the data in the order in which the operations are defined in the rules file.

    Field operations include joins, moves, splits, and creating fields using text and joins. To see the order in which field operations are defined in the rules file, see Performing Operations on Fields.

  3. Essbase applies all properties for each field, applying all properties to field1 before proceeding to field2. Essbase applies field properties in the following order:

    1. Ignores fields set to be ignored during data load

    2. Ignores fields set to be ignored during dimension build

    3. Flags the data field

    4. Applies field names

    5. Applies field generations

    6. Performs all replaces in the order in which they are defined in the rules file

    7. Drops leading and trailing spaces

    8. Converts spaces to underscores

    9. Applies suffix and prefix operations

    10. Scales data values

    11. Converts text to lowercase

    12. Converts text to uppercase

  4. Adds members, or member information, or both, to the outline

  5. If you chose to skip lines, Essbase skips the number of lines that you specified; otherwise, Essbase proceeds to the first record.

  6. Essbase performs selection or rejection criteria in the order in which the criteria are defined in the rules file. Essbase loads or rejects individual records of the data source based on the specified criteria.