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Member name vs member property as providers of descriptive names to dimension members

  • April 25, 2005 at 1:15 am

    #110371

    Suppose I have a dimension table Contractor with columns Contractor Code and Contractor Name. Then, let's say I use the Dimension Wizard to create a dimension Contractor corresponding to that dimension table. The Contractor dimension has just one level, Contractor, whose member key source is the Contractor Code column. Also, since I used the wizard, the default source for the member names is the Contractor Name column. Now, the question is which then would be a better implementation:

    (a) To override the wizard's default and set Contractor Name as the source column for the member names, or

    (b) To leave the wizard default as it is but to add a new member property under the Contractor level and to set the Contractor Name column as this property's source?

  • April 26, 2005 at 2:14 am

    #554779

    Second option is better so that you can see contractor code and corresponding contractor name.

    But if you are generating reports then use should always have user friendly things in that case first option is always better.

    I had done the same thing for dimension "time", i wanted to sort them but by name it was giving me wrong sort order so i gave member key column=Month Id and member name column=Month Name.

    By this i could see Month Name in reports.

  • April 26, 2005 at 4:19 am

    #554805

    Thanks for the second opinion.

    The design document I'm looking at does not really specify what will be done with the OLAP system that I am creating. I guess I'd have to clarify that first before choosing which of the two options is better according to the pros and cons you gave.

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