Database Reference
In-Depth Information
14. Disregard any warning icons and wavy blue lines beneath the dimension or
hierarchy names for now. we will address this later in the chapter.
15. use the Build menu to verify that the dimension builds successfully. If it does not,
troubleshoot the problem or delete the dimension from solution Explorer and go
through the steps again, being careful to include any steps you may have omitted.
In this exercise, you began configuring your dimension. next we will look at some additional configurations
that need to be performed and how you can deploy and review your dimensions.
Attribute Relationships Tab
All attributes are related to the key attributes within their specific dimension. For example, in the Authors
dimension we have two attributes in addition to the Authors key attribute. The first is AuthorId, and the second
is the AuthorState attribute. The Attribute Relationships tab allows you to specify how these three separate
attributes are associated.
Attributes are associated with each other in two ways. Either they are in a parent-child relationship or they
are siblings. Another way to think of this is that they are either in a one-to-many relationship or in a one-to-one
relationship.
■
we are somewhat hesitant to use the one-to-one or one-to-many description to describe attribute rela-
tionships, because this term can be mistaken with the same terms used to describe the data warehouse structure.
Keep in mind that these relationships are between attributes within the dimension. They have nothing to do with the
relationships between tables in the data warehouse.
Note
To give an example, an author ID will only ever be associated with one author key, but one state may be
associated with many authors. This is indicated on the Attribute Relationships tab in a graphical format. Sibling
attributes, like AuthorId, are placed within the same rectangle as the dimensional key attribute. On the other
hand, parents of the dimensional key, such as AuthorState, are placed in their own rectangle with a connecting
arrow pointing toward the parent attribute (Figure
10-19
).
Figure 10-19.
The DimAuthors Attribute Relationships tab
