6
Attributes
Chapter summary
This chapter describes how to create and work with attributes.
Who should read this chapter
You need to know the information in this chapter if you are:
- An Administrator who creates attributes for personal use and for distribution to other users of the shared database that you administer
- A Budget workstation user who creates attributes for personal use and uses attributes that have been distributed to you
- An Analyst workstation user who, although unable to create or maintain them, wishes to gain a basic understanding of attributes
List of topics
This chapter includes the following topics:
About Attributes
Definition: Attributes
Attributes establish relationships between the values of two dimensions in such a way that the values of one dimension (a grouping dimension) can be used to group multiple values of the other dimension (a base dimension). Each value of the grouping dimension serves as a characteristic, or attribute, that applies to multiple values of the base dimension.
Using attributes
Attributes facilitate the process of selecting data for documents. When selecting data by attribute, you can choose any number of values of the base dimension by specifying a single value of the grouping dimension. This eliminates the need to specify each value of the base dimension in a separate operation.
Grouping options
You can create attributes that group related data in many different ways, such as by product type, by time period, or even by user. For example, an administrator could create an attribute called BudgetWest that includes all Budget workstation users in the West division. The administrator could then distribute data specific to Budget Workstation users in the West division, without having to select them all individually.
Who can work with attributes?
Administrators
As an administrator, it is your responsibility to maintain the attributes that your users access in the shared database that you administer. When you create or modify an attribute and want other users to be able to access it, you must distribute the attribute to the shared database and to other users.
Budget workstation users
As a Budget workstation user, you can create and modify attributes for your personal use. You can modify attributes that your administrator has created for you, but you cannot save the modifications unless you assign a new name to the modified attribute, retaining the original.
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.
Text description of the illustration U_06c001.gif
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.
Text description of the illustration U_06c002.gif
Creating and Modifying Attributes
Creating attributes
You choose Attribute from the Maintain menu to create an attribute. This opens the Maintain Attribute dialog box. From this starting point, you can perform the following functions:
- Name the attribute.
- Specify the attribute type. You can choose One-to-Many or Many-to-Many.
- Select the dimension whose values are to form the basis of the attribute.
- For a one-to -many attribute, select the grouping dimension for the attribute. This is the dimension whose values you want to associate with the base dimension.
- For a many-to-many attribute, select the second dimension for the attribute.
When you choose OK, the Edit Attribute dialog box appears. Here, you select dimension values for the dimensions in the attribute definition. You also set the relationships between the dimension values.
- For a one-to-many attribute, you set the relationships between the selected aggregate and base dimension values.
- For a many-to-many attribute, you set the relationships between the value of the first dimension and the value of the second dimension.
Example: Relationships for one-to-many attribute
The following illustration shows an example of the Edit Attribute dialog box with information for a one-to-many attribute, Product by Unit Type.
Text description of the illustration U_06c003.gif
Example: Relationships for many-to-many attribute
The following illustration shows an example of the Edit Attribute dialog box with information for a many-to-many attribute, Product by Monitor Type Availability.
Text description of the illustration U_06c004.gif
Modifying attributes
You choose Attributes from the Maintain menu to modify information for attributes. This opens the Maintain Attributes dialog box, from which you can perform the following functions:
- You can give an attribute a new name.
- You can delete an attribute from your personal database. As an administrator, you can also delete an attribute from the shared database by deleting it from your personal database, and then distributing this change to the shared database.
- You can move an attribute to a new position in the list of attributes maintained by the system.
- You can edit the links between dimension values.
Related information
For more information about working with attributes, search for the following topics in the Financial Analyzer Help system:
- "Creating a Many-to-Many Attribute"
- "Creating a One-to-Many Attribute"
- "Deleting Attributes"
- "Editing Many-to-Many Attributes"
- "Editing a One-to-Many Attributes"
- "Renaming Attributes"
