Unknown value?

  • when on cube design "calculations" tab or in mdx query mode when i expand any + on a dimension there is an "Unknown" at the bottom of all of them. is this some error i have in my design? what is this Unknown? i cannot seem to trace it down to what is causing it as i can get no properties on it.

    doug

  • The "unknown" is the unknown bucket that is created automatically by each dimension. The cube will place all values that have no corresponding surrogate key to that dimension in the unknown bucket.

    Check the dimension properties, there you can turn it off.

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  • And also, assign default values to dimension entities. Not displaying the 'Unknown members' will just hide the dim(s).

    Raunak J

  • And also, assign default values to dimension entities.

    I don't normally recommend this because when the dimension is not present, it can create confusing information for the user.

    As for the Unknown, you should have your own UNKNOWN value that all unknown entries will be placed against. I make this value with a key of 0 so that in combination with a left join in the final load I can say COALESCE(fieldname, 0) AS columnname.

  • I agree with RonKyle Unkown members should be handled before they they get to the cube in the ETL process by creating an unkown member and assigning this to the missing values.

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