Properties are attributes (columns) associated with dimension hierarchy members. For example, a Location dimension might have levels for country, state, city, and store. Each store might have a floor area property that might be used to calculate sales per unit floor area.
Member properties are specified as Property elements under a level. The procedure in this section demonstrates creating member properties at the leaf level, but member properties can exist at any level.
Properties are optional and not required to validate and publish a cube schema.
- From the Schema Tree View, vertically expand the Dimensions folder and select the level on which to add a new property.
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Right-click and select New Property.
The Schema Element Properties View appears in the right pane.
- In the Name box, type a name for the new property.
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Click in the Caption box.
The caption automatically fills with the same name as the property.
The caption is a name that is displayed and can be localized to different languages in the BI client application. See Cube Schema Localization.
- Select a property format style from the level table from the Property Format Style menu. Property Format Style formats how properties appear. For date columns, select Date. For time columns, select Time. For timestamp columns, select Date, Time, or Timestamp. Select General to disable formatting on values containing fixed numbers, such as an employee or account ID. Select Numeric to enable formatting for large numbers, such as 1,244,883.
- The Database field automatically displays the same database as the parent dimension.
- Select a property table from the Table menu.
- Select a property column from the Column menu.