Dimensions in the Conceptual Model - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services - page 42

TABLE 5.1

Attribute Properties

Name Description

Defines a type for the attribute. Typically, the Type property is not
used in the multidimensional model per se. You can specify it in
the multidimensional model so that analytical applications could
use it as a property to choose the appropriate user view of the
data and allow appropriate access to the member (for example,
Time or Account dimensions).

Type

Defines whether the attribute is the key attribute (used as the key
for the dimension), an additional attribute for the dimension, or a
parent attribute.

Usage

Defines a source, type, and size of the key value for the attribute
member. The key of the attribute is, practically speaking, a unique
identifier of a member. The key value type can be either text or
numeric. For example, 02052008 can be the key of the member in
the Day attribute.

KeyColumn

Defines a source for the string used to identify a member by a
user. In contrast to a key, the name value has to be text. For
example, February 5, 2008 is a name of a member in the Day
attribute. The NameColumn property can have the same value as
KeyColumn if the KeyColumn type is text (obviously).

NameColumn

Defines the source of additional value of the member. Usually, the
value of the attribute is equivalent to the value of the key (defined
by KeyColumn ). In some situations, however, they differ. Most
often, this happens when the value is defined by something other
than the numeric data type, such as a picture or video or sound
file. In our example, 36 will be the value of a member, which corre-
sponds to the thirty-sixth day of the year.

ValueColumn

Defines whether the order of the members is determined by key or
by name.

OrderBy

Defines a different attribute that determines the order. This is an
optional property that works with OrderBy . If this property is
defined, Analysis Services will use it to sort members of the
current attribute by key or name of the specified attribute. For
example, you can sort product by its Stock Keeping Unit (SKU).

OrderByAttributeID

Defines whether the name is unique for all the attribute members.
Uniqueness of the key is an important requirement for defining an
attribute. Attribute names don't have to be unique. However, dupli-
cate names can cause some inconveniences when using the
dimension and can affect the performance of name resolution. We
recommend using unique names when possible.

MemberNameUnique