Dummy dimension for passing parameters

Hi,

I'm just having a little problem... I have a calculation, which is a non-trivial formula. This needs input from some dimensions (no problem with that...) and some information, which is independant from the data itself. The idea is to have something like a dimension but which is not connected to the data itself. You can't slice anything using it, it's just used to provide some input for the formula. Just imagine you have some amounts and you want to display the interests for them. The interests are nothing from the cube, they just are needed as input for the formula to calculate the interests. In the cube you only have the amount. Sure, you can add different measures for each interest rate you need, but this might be quite a pain...

Any idea?

Thomas,

You might be able to get what you want by using the same method as was outlined in an article on building a dimension for "cell annotations". Here is the link:

http://www.sqlserveranalysisservices.com/OLAPPapers/Cell%20Annotations%20in%20AS2005v1.htm

The idea is that you have a dimension table that has a compound key made up of the key values that identify a cell in the cube and then the additional attributes can be comments or a formula or whatever you want. You can then retrieve information from the dimension using the script as outlined in the article. The annotations dimension does not have to be related to any measure group.

HTH,

- Steve

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Hi Thomas,

AS2005 supports dimensions which aren't connected to any measure group in your cube - just go to the Dimensions tab in the Cube Editor, click on the box at the intersection of the dimension and the measure group, and set the 'Relationship Type' property in the dropdown at the top of the dialog to 'No Relationship'. I've used this method several times to include dimensions in cubes which don't affect any of the regular measures but which are used in calculations to control how they behave.

Regards,

Chris

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Chris,

thanks, works perfectly... It's just too easy to find out ;-)

Hope you had a good trip back from PASS... Your session helped me very much to do the custom rollups I asked you about... Seams to work, but some crasy things going on with the scopes... But that's something for later...