Is it possible to integrate relational data with OLAP cubes?

Question

I have a web application that accesses cubes created from AWM via the OLAP API. I need to integrate a column from a relational table in the front application and display the column along side cube data.
Is there any way to achieve the functionality from the OLAP API?

Answer 1

Can you explain how the relational data source relates to the OLAP data, is it a master-detail relationship? If this is the case then you could consider the following:
1) Depending on how you are displaying the OLAP data. If you are using a non-BI Beans presentation bean then if the keys are consistent across both data sources it should be possible to create two separate queries and glue them together using the common keys within your data source module.
2) Alternatively, you create a custom text measure within AWM and then use OLAP DML to extract the detail data and load it into a multi-line text variable that could be retrieved via OLAPI. This might not work if there is a large number of rows within the text variable to retrieve as formatting the results within your application might get complicated. The OLAP DML Help contains a lot of excellent examples that will help you create a program that uses SQL commands to load data.
Hope this helps
Keith Laker
Oracle EMEA Consulting
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