Creating Your First Multidimensional Cube - Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development - page 78

Creating additional dimensions and

adding them to the cube

Now let's go back to creating more dimensions. In this case, we will add the Product
dimension. The Product dimension is stored in three different tables in the data
source view. The DimProduct table contains all the product rows, the DimPro-
ductSubcategory table contains the subcategories, and the DimProductCat-
egory table contains the major category list of the products. To create the Product
dimension, follow these steps:

1. In the Solution Explorer window, right-click on Dimensions and choose New
Dimension... .
2. Choose Use an existing table and click on Next .
3. Use the Adventure Works DW2012 data source view and select
DimProduct as the main table. The key column will be ProductKey and the
name column should be EnglishProductName ; after this has been done click
on Next .

Tip

Whenever you have a dimension that is stored in several tables you al-
ways start with the table that is closest to the fact table.

4. As you can see, the outer tables according to the relationship in the data
source view are automatically selected and added to the dimension. Make
surethat DimProductSubcategory and DimProductCategory areselec-
ted and click on Next .
5. Add the following attributes to the dimension and click on Next :

• Product Key
• Color
• Size
• Product Line
• Class