Transparent partitions must follow these rules:
The shared transparent areas of the data source and data target outlines need not be identical, but you must be able to map the dimensions in them. You must tell Essbase how each dimension and member in the data source maps to each dimension and member in the data target.
The data source and data target outlines for the nonshared areas need not be mappable, but attribute associations must be identical. Otherwise, users can get incorrect results for some retrievals. For example, if product 100-10-1010 is associated with the Grape Flavor attribute on the source, but product 100-10-1010 is not associated with Grape on the target, the total of sales for all Grape flavors in New York is incorrect.
The partition definition must contain only stored members. You cannot use attribute dimensions or members to define a transparent partition. For example, the Market Type attribute dimension, which is associated with the Market dimension, has members Urban, Suburban, and Rural. You cannot define a partition on Urban, Suburban, or Rural.
If a cell is mapped from the data source to an aggregate storage database as the target, all the cell's dependents must also be mapped to the same partition definition.
You can create a transparent partition on top of a replicated partition. In other words, you can create a transparent partition target using a replicated partition source, as shown in Figure 54, Valid Transparent Partition
As illustrated in Figure 55, Invalid Transparent Partition, you cannot create a transparent partition on top of multiple other partitions. In other words, you cannot create a transparent partition target from multiple sources because each cell in a database must be retrieved from only one location—either the local disk or a remote disk.
Carefully consider any formulas you assign to members in the data source and data target.