How to clean up of empty blocks in a Essbase database.

Question

Is there a way or a script that I can write to get a list of all empty block in a calced block storage application? For example I would like to find out which generation 3 blocks are empty (after aggregating) in a given dimension, extract this list onto a text file so I can delete these from the outline using a parent child dim build.<BR><BR>If you know of an alternate way to achieve the same result your assistance would be greatly appreciated.<BR><BR>Cheers.

Answer 1

The simplest way to clean up empty blocks is to defrag the database by doing a level 0 export, clear the database, then reload and reconsolidate. You can automate this process with MaxL and schedule it run during off hours.<BR><BR>As far as a way to run a report that will show you data blocks at different sparse combinations with no data in them, Essbase does not have that functionality built in. Perhaps you could write something custom if you really wanted to get into it, but I think the effort would be great for something of little value. To get a report showing empty blocks so you could then write a calc script to fix on them and use a CLEARBLOCK command to get rid of them would take a lot of time. The defrag process I described above is pretty quick on most databases.<BR><BR>The one thing to watch out for with the method I described above is if you are inputing data to upper level blocks and not using calc scripts to allocate the values to base level members. Many would consider this bad practice, including me, and would say you should not do it. But if you are and you don't want to change, then make sure you are doing full database exports and not just level 0.<BR><BR>HTH