How to Aggregate "Value Based Hierarchies"

Question

I've a tipical parent-child dimension ( Company ).
I've created Company dimension using Analitic Workspace Manager defining the Hierarchy as "Value Based Hierarchy".
In the fact table there are some entries related to non leaf nodes of the Company dimension.
After the loading process I view the cube but I see the aggregation computed only on leaf nodes, intermediate node's amounts were not summed.
Example on Company table ( from "Kimball Design Tip #17: Populating Hierarchy Helper Tables" )
Microsoft               
---Software
------Consulting
------Products=================AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Office
------------Visio
---------------Visio-Europe====AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Back-Office
------------SQL-Server
---------------OLAP-Services===AMOUNT==>100.0
---------------DTS
---------------Repository======AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Developer-Tools
---------Windows
---------Entertainment
------------Games
------------Multimedia
------Education
---Online-Services=============AMOUNT==>100.0
------WebTV
------MSN
---------MSN.co.uk
---------Hotmail.com
---------MSNBC
------------MSNBC-Online=======AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Expedia
------------Expedia.co.uk
Expected Aggregation: 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 = 600
But I see only 400. , it seems that Online-Services and Products Entries were not aggregated.
What's wrong?
Andrea

Answer 1

Aggregation aggregates from lower levels to higher levels overwriting whatever values might be in the upper level cells. Aggregation within the analytic workspace is not cummulative. The problem is that commulative aggregation is to compute the first time the data is aggregated, but it's very difficult to understand what do in later aggregations. E.g., in your example you would expect the following values from these nodes (I'm not including the whole example:
Microsoft 400.00
---Software 400.00
------Consulting 400.00
------Products=================AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Office 100.00
------------Visio 100.00
---------------Visio-Europe====AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Back-Office 200.00
------------SQL-Server 200.00
---------------OLAP-Services===AMOUNT==>100.0
---------------DTS
---------------Repository======AMOUNT==>100.0
If you aggregate again and aggregation is cummulative, you would get:
Microsoft 1900.00
---Software 1500.00
------Consulting 1100.00
------Products=================AMOUNT==>700.0
---------Office 300.00
------------Visio 300.00
---------------Visio-Europe====AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Back-Office 400.00
------------SQL-Server 400.00
---------------OLAP-Services===AMOUNT==>100.0
---------------DTS
---------------Repository======AMOUNT==>100.0
That is, there's no way to understand whether to accumulate or not.
You can model this by adding dummy detail members for all summary members and aggregating from those. E.g.,
Microsoft
---Software
------Consulting
------Products
------------------- Products Detail 100.00
---------Office
------------Visio
---------------Visio-Europe====AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Back-Office
------------SQL-Server
---------------OLAP-Services===AMOUNT==>100.0
---------------DTS
---------------Repository======AMOUNT==>100.0
---------Developer-Tools
---------Windows
---------Entertainment
------------Games
------------Multimedia
------Education
In this case, you can aggregate as often as you like.