Database Reference
In-Depth Information
tering, sorting, and summing measures make use of dimensions. A
Student Count
of
5
is
meaningless unless it is associated with one or more dimensions.
A hierarchy is when a higher level can contain many lower levels, but a lower level can be-
long to, at most, one higher level. These higher levels indicate that we can view the meas-
ures in the meter at these levels as well. For example, we can view
Student Count
at either
the
Year
or
Semester
levels. The
Calendar
dimension is an example of a two-level hier-
archy.
If we felt that our audience would not understand the traditional modeling techniques, we
could use a very business-friendly form called the Axis Technique.
Axis Technique
The Axis Technique is when you put the business process we are measuring in the center
and each axis represents a dimension. The notches on each axis represent the levels of detail
that are required to see the measures in the meter. This form works great when the audience
has limited exposure to data modeling (or doesn't want to see the data model).
