Browsing Analysis Services OLAP Cubes with Excel - Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools for Excel Analysts - page 248

For example, in a Date dimension, a set of dates falls under a set of months, which falls under a set of
years. Analysis Services understands the hierarchy between these nodes from a parent-child perspec-
tive, as well as the ordinal positioning of nodes.
Within a hierarchy, each data value serves as a dimension part. Dimension parts are common terms
that are applied based on the context of the analysis being performed:
➤ Member: A member is any value within a particular dimension. In the example of a Date
dimension, some members would be 2012, 2013, January, and February.
➤ Parent: A parent is a member that has immediate hierarchical precedence over another
member; that is, it is the “hierarchical parent” of another member. For example, 2013 would
be the parent of January and February. Likewise, January is shown as the parent of 1/1/2013
and 1/2/2013.
➤ Child: A child is the inverse of a parent.
➤ Level: A level is a grouping of members that falls under the same parent. In the example of
the Date dimension, there is one level for Years, another level for Months, and another level
for Dates.
➤ Ancestor(s): An ancestor has eventual (not immediate) hierarchical precedence over another
member; that is, it is the “hierarchical ancestor” of another member. For example, 2013 is
shown as the ancestor of 1/1/2013.
➤ Descendant(s): A descendant is the inverse of an ancestor.
Figure 13-1 illustrates the basic structure of a typical OLAP cube.
Figure 13-1: The basic structure of an OLAP cube.
Connecting to an OLAP Data Source
Before you can browse OLAP data, you must establish a connection to an OLAP cube. From the Data
tab, select From Analysis Services from the From Other Sources drop-down menu.