The Sample_Dynamic Basic cube has five standard dimensions (Year, Measures, Product, Market, and Scenario), and five attribute dimensions (Caffeinated, Ounces, Pkg Type, Population, and Intro Date).

The standard dimension Product is associated with four attribute dimensions: Caffeinated, Ounces, Pkg Type, and Intro Date). The standard dimension Market is associated with the attribute dimension Population.

The Market dimension member Connecticut is associated with the 6000000 member of the Population attribute dimension. That makes 6000000 an attribute of Connecticut.

The product member 100-10 has three attributes—it has caffeine, is sold in 12-ounce containers, and is sold in cans.

You can tag only sparse dimensions as attribute dimensions.

Before you can save an outline to the server, each attribute dimension must be associated with a standard, sparse dimension as its base dimension.

Attribute dimensions must be the last dimensions in the outline.

Attribute dimensions have a type setting—text, numeric, Boolean, or date. Text is the default setting. Although assigned at the dimension level, the type applies only to the level 0 members of the dimension. See Attribute Types.

If you remove the attribute tag from a dimension, Essbase removes prefixes or suffixes from its member names. Prefixes and suffixes are not visible in the outline. See Set Prefix and Suffix Formats for Member Names of Attribute Dimensions.

A base dimension member can have many attributes, but only one attribute from each attribute dimension.

For example, product 100-10 can have size and packaging attributes, but only one size and only one type of packaging.

You cannot associate an attribute with an implied shared member, the child of which is tagged as shared.

You can use attribute values in calculations in the following comparisons:

• > (greater than)

• >= (greater than or equal to)

• < (less than)

• <= (less than or equal to)

• == (equal to)

• <> or != (not equal to)

• IN

Observe these restrictions on attribute dimension associations:

• An attribute dimension must be associated with a sparse standard dimension.

• A standard dimension can be a base dimension for multiple attribute dimensions.

• An attribute dimension can be associated with only one base dimension.

  For example, assume there is a Size attribute dimension with members Small, Medium, and Large.

  
  
  
  
  

  If you associate the Size attribute dimension with the Product dimension, you cannot also associate the Size attribute dimension with the Market dimension. Tracking size-related information for the Market dimension requires another attribute dimension with a different name.

Observe these restrictions on attribute member associations:

• You cannot associate multiple members from the same attribute dimension with the same base dimension member. For example, the Bottle and Can package types cannot both be associated with the product 100-30.

• You can associate members from different attribute dimensions with the same member of a base dimension. For example, a decaffeinated cola product (100-30) sold in 16-ounce bottles has three attributes: Caffeinated:False; Ounces:16; and Pkg Type:Bottle.

  
  
  
  
  

• Essbase does not require that each member of a base dimension be associated with a member of an attribute dimension.

• The level 0 members of attribute dimensions are the only members that you can associate with base dimension members.

  For example, in the Population attribute dimension, you can associate only level 0 members such as 3000000, 6000000, and 9000000, with members of the Market dimension. You cannot associate a level 1 member such as Small.

  
  
  
  
  

  The name of the level 0 member of an attribute dimension is the attribute value. The only members of attribute dimensions that have attribute values are level 0 members.

  You can use the higher-level members of attribute dimensions to select and group data. For example, you can use Small, the level 1 member of the Population attribute dimension, to retrieve sales in both the 3000000 and 6000000 population categories.

• All base dimension members associated with members of a particular attribute dimension must be at the same level. This is called the "association level." The first attribute association determines the association level.

• You cannot associate an attribute with an implied shared member, the child of which is tagged as shared.

Text attribute type

The default attribute type is text. Text attributes enable basic attribute member selection and comparisons in calculations. Because the comparisons are textual, Essbase compares characters. For example, the package type Bottle is less than the package type Can, because B precedes C in the alphabet. In the Sample Basic database, Pkg Type is a text attribute dimension.

Numeric attribute type

The names of level 0 members of numeric attribute dimensions are numeric values. You can include the names (values) of numeric attribute dimension members in calculations. For example, you can use the number of ounces specified in the Ounces attribute to calculate profit per ounce for each product.

You can also associate numeric attributes with ranges of base dimension values; for example, to analyze product sales by market population groupings—states with 3,000,000 population or less in one group, states with a population between 3,000,001 and 6,000,000 in another group, and so on. See Set Up Member Names Representing Ranges of Values.

Essbase supports date attributes from January 1, 1970, through January 1, 2038.

Boolean attribute type

All Boolean attribute dimensions in a database contain only two members. The member names must match the settings for the database; for example, True and False. If multiple Boolean attribute dimensions exist, specify a prefix or suffix member name format to ensure unique member names; for example, Caffeinated_True and Caffeinated_False. See Set Boolean Attribute Member Names.

Date attribute type

You can use date attributes to specify the date format—month-day-year or day-month-year—and to sequence information accordingly. See Change the Member Names in Date Attribute Dimensions. You can use date attributes in calculations. For example, you can compare dates in a calculation that selects product sales from markets established since 10-12-1999.

Essbase supports date attributes from January 1, 1970, through January 1, 2038.

The following table describes major differences between attribute and standard dimensions and their members.

In hybrid mode, the default calculation order (also known as solve order) matches that of block storage databases, with some enhancements. If you wish to use a non-default solve order, you can set a custom solve order for dimensions and members.

For more information about hybrid mode, see Adopt Hybrid Mode for Fast Analytic Processing.

The following example, based on the Product dimension in the Sample Basic database, illustrates how two-pass calculations work on attribute dimensions. Assume member "400-30" is tagged as two-pass.

If member "400-30" has the following member formula:

="400–10";

Essbase executes the formula when performing a retrieve on "400-30."

If "400-30" has the following member formula:

=@CURRMBR("Market");

Essbase skips the calculation because the formula includes the @CURRMBR runtime function, which is not allowed, and issues the following error message:

Two-pass calc skipped on member [400-30] in attribute calc

If "400-30" does not have a member formula, the same error message is generated because a member tagged as two-pass must have a formula.

Data Storage

Attributes can be associated with sparse dimensions only, while UDAs can be used with dense and sparse dimensions.

Data Retrieval

Data Conversion

Based on the value of a UDA, you can change the sign of the data as it is loaded into the database. For example, you can reverse the sign of all members with the UDA Debit. Sign flipping is not supported for attributes.

Calculation Scripts