Dimension VS Detail Object.

building semantic layer
1

Hi

What is the differnce between the Dimension and Detail Object and what are all the pros and cons of these.?

Regards

Siva.M

looksmee :uk: (BOB member since 2006-02-08)

2

Hi,
You should do a search first.

What I can say is a detail is always associated with a dimension object.
If your dimension object has a detail object then it is also dragged along with the dimension object.

One more thing we can not use any detil object for linking the data provider.

Omkar Paranjpe :us: (BOB member since 2006-02-13)

3

Hi

Thanks for your reply…but when am drag my Object, its not dragged my detail object which is associated with my dimension. Am taken the example from the Activity Universe and pulled out Action Name, Action Name ID and Action Type. Here there is a detail object “Action Type Detail” Associated with Action type…but its not come in to my query panel. i have to manually pull the object to get in to my report…Any idea?

Regards

Siva.M

looksmee :uk: (BOB member since 2006-02-08)

4

That’s the way it is designed to work.

If however, you move the detail object then this will automatically select the dimension object too.

dessa :madagascar: (BOB member since 2004-01-29)

5

Dessa,

Your are right…if i pull the Detail Object, then its automatically pull my Dimension also. But if i remove my Detail object from query panel, its not moving the Dimension…

Regards

Siva.M

looksmee :uk: (BOB member since 2006-02-08)

6

I have real problems with detail objects in XIr2 - they quite often give me MULTIVALUE errors in webi reports, instead of generating another data line. They work fine in deski. I ended up having to convert all the detail objects back to dimension objects.

Debbie

Debbie :uk: (BOB member since 2005-03-01)

7

Hi

Have a look on the discussion…

Regards

Siva.M

looksmee :uk: (BOB member since 2006-02-08)

8

Looksme, I don’t see how that discussion addresses Debbie’s statement?

Debbie, I can’t say that I have had any such problems, but then again I don’t use detail objects as sections or such like.

dessa :madagascar: (BOB member since 2004-01-29)

9

My detail objects are just boring things like Telephone Number! For example I could have a Name dimension object and a Telephone Number detail object. Now you’d think that if a person had two associated telephone numbers, you’d get two lines of data, but I only get one with the first name and a MULTIVALUE error in the Telephone Number column. But not always. And not in deski which gives me exactly what I want.

I’ve got a case logged with Business Objects but due to the sensitivity of our data I can’t produce an example to give them.

Debbie

Debbie :uk: (BOB member since 2005-03-01)

10

A detail object is one that has a one-to-one correspondence with the dimension object with which it is associated.

For my employee number, my name would be a detail object.

For a project code, the project name would be a detail object.

Anita Craig :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

11

Ah - does it have to be 1-1, then? Doesn’t say that in the manuals! In fact the example the manual uses has a customer as a dimension and then phone number as a detail. My customers can have more than 1 phone number.

If it has to be 1-1, that explains the multivalue errors. By why does deski allow it, I wonder?

Thanks for that, Anita.

Debbie

Debbie :uk: (BOB member since 2005-03-01)

12

Not in the data model for the example from the book, no. The phone number is on the customer row, and therefore is only going to occur once per customer.

Simply put, a detail should come from the same table as its parent dimension. Think of a dimension as the key for the table, and a detail being all of the attributes of that table.

Dave Rathbun :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-06)

13

Hi All,

I have a questions regarding detail and dimension object…

is there is anything like one type holding much memory space compare to other?( sometime we need to make dim obj as details, in that context i have that doubt)

Thanks in advance

aakash (BOB member since 2006-11-16)

14

I very much doubt it, besides universes are usually very small in size anyway, that such a change would have next to no impact.

To answer the original question, apart from dimensions being blue cubes and details being green pyramids :wink: , this topic
here from a while back gives another use of detail objects over dimension objects.

dessa :madagascar: (BOB member since 2004-01-29)

15

detail - static information on which nothing has to been done but displayed
think of streetnames
however when your a postal office it’s no detail to you but a dimension, you might want to search and report on it

not to have any trouble we never use details, only dimensions or measures

the only time i used details was as described in the thread to combine 2 universes in a report

think from your userspoint of view, do they want to count, search, filtered etc? then use dimension
If you are absolutly sure that it will only be displayed, you could make it a detail related to an appropriate dimension.
But it does nothing memory or size wise it just prevents a user from doing more than displaying it and you don’t have to turn of LOV’s.

IngeH :netherlands: (BOB member since 2004-06-22)

16

That makes sense. It means that I can’t really use detail objects as most of our data can have more than 1 of everything - eg: our “customers” (for want of a better word) can have many addresses, many telephones, even many descriptions.

Thanks for your help on this.

debbie

Debbie :uk: (BOB member since 2005-03-01)

17

What is my conception is

1)detail object can be used when drill down/roll up is not required

  1. in WEB I if some attribute is detail and at the time of synchronisation/ merge it is taking its associated dim’s DP and consider if it is merged or not…( to avoid # context error)

please verify…

Thanks,
Aakash

aakash (BOB member since 2006-11-16)