Building the Hierarchy in Express Administrator

Question

Hi,
I have created few dimentions and Fact using Oracle Express Administrator and have imported the relational table data into them. Now I want to build the hierarchy for my time dimention (Year, Month, Quarter, Date). How to do that efficiently? I have tried "Edit data" option and have created the hierarchy manually by dragging and dropping the data for the "Standard" hierarchy, but it does not seem to be a good way-out as I have more than 5years data (date) in 4 different levels. Can anybody give me a better solution to build the hierarchy?
Thanx in advance

Answer 1

Hi Supriyo,
You have to offer the parent-child relationship information to Express. Your relational table data structure should contain a parent field like this (";" = field separator):
2000
2001
2002
Q1-00;2000
Q4-02;2002
01-00;Q1-00
12-02;Q4-02
01-01-00;01-00
12-31-02;12-02
Then You can use Import item (I suppose from menu File) or - for dimensions easier way - using wizard but I don't remember where to find it. The result is the same. It will lead You through describing Your input data structure, then it reads the data and updates all appropriate metaobjects. But I'm not sure where the input data can be in a relational table - we used text files.
Input data are read using self-generated loader (in SPL) - I can offer You it's generalized but simplified version. If You don't know SPL, You can ignore it. Otherwise You can implement it for Your purposes - I think it's possible to read the data directly from relational tables (read doc. & Help).
The program has three parameters - name of the input file, name of the dimension and name of the hierarchy (You can have more hierarchies in a dimension - then it's the preferable to have each in a separate file).
We consider 4 fields:
1. dimension value
2. long label
3. short label
4. parent (as shown in the example above)
(each column means separate Express object; You can add other columns when You define objects for them first and modify the program)
define Prg_AktDim program
"consider Prg_AktDim
program
argument jms text
argument jmDim text
argument jmHie text
variable prefixDb text
variable prefixDim text
variable f integer
vrb _Pass integer " current pass or NA if one-pass "
vrb _tStart text " text start delimiter "
vrb _TEnd text " text end delimiter "
vrb _FSep text " field separator "
prefixDb = extchars (obj(property 'SHORTLABELVAR' jmDim) 1 3) "30.5. joinchars (upcase (extchars (dtb(name) 1 2)) '.')
if extchars (prefixDb 3 1) ne '.'; then prefixDb = extchars (prefixDb 1 2)
prefixDim = obj(property 'idcode' jmDim)
_Pass = 2
_TStart = '"'
_TEnd   = '"'
_FSep   = ';'
if not isValue (&joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.HIERDIM'), jmHie)
then maintain &joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.HIERDIM') add jmHie
trap on error
f = fileopen(jms read)
" FILEREAD SPECIFICATIONS for pass 2 "
fileread f -
structured textstart TStart textend TEnd delimiter _FSep -
FIELD 1 STRIP append &jmDim -
FIELD 2 STRIP &joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.SHORTLABEL') -
FIELD 3 STRIP &joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.LONGLABEL') -
FIELD 4 STRIP &joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.PARENT')(&joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.HIERDIM') jmHie) -
&jmDim = &joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.PARENT')(&joinchars (prefixDb prefixDim '.HIERDIM') jmHie)
call &('xp_dmhiercalc')(jmDim jmHie )
fileclose f
return
error:
if f ne NA; then fileclose f
END
The program doen't update most metaobjects (only 3 of 16:-( so I can't guarantee that the Oracle Express Objects tables (mainly Selector) will work correctly but by us it worked:-)
Good luck!