Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® Analysis Services 2008 with MDX

9.2. Adding and Enhancing Dimensions

Dimensions are an integral part of a cube. In this section, you learn about specific properties that affect a dimension's behavior within a cube as well as special types of relationships that can be defined between a dimension and a measure group. These features allow you to address special business requirements and thereby enhance overall analytical capabilities.

When you create a dimension within an Analysis Services 2008 database, you are actually creating a database dimension, which can be shared across multiple cubes within the same database or used multiple times within a single cube. Each instance of a database dimension within a cube is called a cube dimension. Right-click within the Dimensions pane of the Cube Structure page as shown in Figure 9-7 to add a new cube dimension.

Figure 9.7. Figure 9-7

For each cube dimension, you can selectively exclude certain hierarchies or attributes by modifying properties. In the Dimensions pane on the Cube Structure tab, select the hierarchy or the attribute to be hidden and then change the applicable property in the Properties window to False. If you want to hide a hierarchy, use the Visible property. To hide an attribute, use the AttributeHierarchyVisible property.

Another important property of a cube dimension is AllMemberAggregationUsage. This property is associated with the cube dimension ...