You can represent each business view as a separate standard dimension in the database. If you need to analyze a business area by classification or attribute, such as by the size or color of products, you can use attribute dimensions to represent the classification views.
The dimensions that you choose determine what types of analysis you can perform on the data. With Essbase, you can use as many dimensions as you need for analysis. A typical Essbase database contains at least seven standard dimensions (nonattribute dimensions) and many more attribute dimensions.
When you know approximately what dimensions and members you need, review the following topics and develop a tentative database design:
After you determine the dimensions of the database model, choose the elements or items within the perspective of each dimension. These elements become the members of their respective dimensions. For example, a perspective of time may include the time periods that you want to analyze, such as quarters, and within quarters, months. Each quarter and month becomes a member of the dimension that you create for time. Quarters and months represent a two-level hierarchy of members and their children. Months within a quarter consolidate to a total for each quarter.
Next, consider the relationships among the business areas. The structure of an Essbase database makes it easy for users to analyze information from many perspectives. A financial analyst, for example, may ask the following questions:
In other words, the analyst may want to examine information from three perspectives—time, account, and scenario. The sample database in Figure 27, Cube Representing Three Database Dimensions represents these three perspectives as three dimensions, with one dimension represented along each of the three axes:
A time dimension—which comprises Jan, Feb, Mar, and the total for Qtr1—is displayed along the X-axis.
An accounts dimension, which consists of accounting figures such as Sales, COGS, Margin, and Margin%, is displayed along the Y-axis.
Another dimension, which provides a different point of view, such as Budget for budget values and Actual for actual values, is displayed along the Z-axis.
The cells within the cube, where the members intersect, contain the data relevant to all three intersecting members; for example, the actual sales in January.
Table 2 shows a summary of the TBC business areas that the planner determined would be dimensions. The dimensions represent the major business areas to be analyzed. The planner created three columns, with the dimensions in the left column and members in the two right columns. The members in column 3 are subcategories of the members in column 2. In some cases, members in column 3 are divided into another level of subcategories; for example, the Margin of the Measures dimension is divided into Sales and COGS.
Table 2. TBC Sample Dimensions
In addition, the planner added two attribute dimensions to enable product analysis based on size and packaging:
Use the following checklist when determining the dimensions and members of your model database: