Natural hierarchy troubles...

  • Hi everyone,

    I've got a question about natural and non natural hierarchies in SSAS.

    I've created a non natural hierarchy based on a Time dimension.

    Since SP2, SSAS explain that non natural hierarchies has worse performances than naturals...

    ... But, when I try to transform my hierarchy in a natural one, the values are wrong.

    My time Table has the following structure :

    pk_time int (eg : 20060101)

    id_year int (eg : 2006)

    id_month int (eg : 1)

    id_week int (eg : 1)

    id_quarter int (eg : 1)

    and the following label columns (lb_year, lb_month, lb_week, ...).

    The key dimension is the primary key of the Time Table

    and my non natural hierarchy is the following :

    First Level : Year

    Second Level : Quarter

    Third Level : Month

    Fourth Level : Week

    Fifht Level : Day

    When I browser this hierarchy I've got the right values, witch mean :

    2006

    Q 1

    Q 2

    April

    May

    June

    Week X,

    Week ....

    But, when I define the relationship between the Levels attributes, in order to build natural hierachy I've got something like this :

    2006

    Q1

    2007

    Q2

    Q3

    2008

    Q4

    ...

    Witch doesn't have any sense....

    Does anybody have encounter the same trouble, and found something to solve it?

    Thanks a lot by Advance

    Best regards

    Sébastien

  • You have attribute keys that are not unique. Every year has the same 4 quarters. Since you named your Quarters Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, the same 4 quarters are repeated.

    You need to make your attribute keys unique. You can do this either by using a field that is unique (many people will include the year in the quarter description "2008 -Q1") or you can add the year to the attribute key of the quarter - this is why attribute keys can include multiple fields.

    Also, search on your favorite search engine for "BIDS Helper" and download it. It is free. It will give you a utility called the "Dimension Health Check" that will verify your attribute relationships for you.

  • Yes, you're absolutely right !!!

    Thanks again for your answer, I'll try it right now !

    Sébastien

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