Attribute Types

Overview

Financial Analyzer supports two types of attributes:

• One-to-many -- A relationship where multiple values of a base dimension are related to a single value of a grouping dimension.

• Many-to-many -- A relationship where multiple values of a base dimension are related to multiple values of a grouping dimension.

One-to-many attributes

One-to-many attributes:

• Establish a relationship between the values of two dimensions where each value of a grouping dimension is related to multiple values of a base dimension.

• Simplify the process of selecting data by enabling you to specify a single value of the grouping dimension to select many values of the base dimension.

Example: One-to-many attribute

In this example:

• Products are either workstations or components.

• The grouping dimension is Unit Type.

• The grouping dimension value Workstation is related to the base dimension values Sentinel Standard and Envoy Standard.

• The grouping dimension value Component is linked to the base dimension values Monitor and Modem/Fax.

You can select a subset of Product by specifying either Workstation or Component.

Many-to-many attributes

Many-to-many attributes:

• Establish a relationship between the values of two dimensions where multiple values of a grouping dimension are related to multiple values of a base dimension.

• Simplify the process of selecting data by enabling you to specify a single value of the grouping dimension to select many values of the base dimension.

• Provide an additional feature for refining your data selection; because the base dimension values can be linked to multiple values of the grouping dimension, the grouping dimension values provide a context for selecting data.

Example: Many-to-many attribute

In this example:

• Products are displayed, along with possible types of monitors available for each.

• The grouping dimension is Monitor Type Availability.

• The grouping dimension value VGA is linked to Sentinel Standard, Sentinel Multimedia, and Envoy Standard.

• The grouping dimension value Super VGA is linked to Sentinel Financial, Sentinel Multimedia, and Envoy Standard.

• The Products Sentinel Multimedia and Envoy Standard are related to both types of Monitor Availability because they are available with either VGA or Super VGA monitors.

You can select the value Sentinel Multimedia in terms of the context in which you want to view or analyze it: as part of your VGA workstations, or as part of your Super VGA workstations.