Time dimension generated differently in 11gR2

Hi,
on generating a new default time dimension, I noticed some strange behaviour compared to the former release which seems to be incorrect.
1. No DIMENSION_KEY column as PK
2. the %_START_DATE columns are defined as business key instead of the %_NUMBER ord %_CODE columns
3. DAY_START_DATE is defined as PK column
I can modify this manually but what is the intention behind?
Is it meant that we should use a date column as FK reference in the cubes instead of the surrogate key.
Very odd !!
regards
Thomas

Hi,
thanks to Google I found Dave Allens excellent paper on [degenerate dimensions|http://blogs.oracle.com/warehousebuilder/2010/05/owb_11gr2_degenerate_dimensions.html].
Now it's a lot clearer to me.
Supposing you will read this, Dave, some more remarks:
1. The date column in the cube is a blessing not only with partitioning. Until now, I used to update the surrogate key of the time dimension to a number of format YYYYMMDD in order to ease my life.
2. But the time dimension table is still used not a mere stub as with DD?
3. I don't understand the context with SCD2. There, I need the DIMENSION_KEY.
4. I have the situation with a fact table containing one row per phone call. The unique phone call ID would be a candidate for a DD. But what would be the advantage to define the stub DD instead of just entering the string ?
Please give some more hints for a better understanding.
regards
Thomas

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3. On the next screen I choose ROLAP: Relational Storage
4. On the next screen set Start year: 2003, Number of years: 3
5. On the next screen choose all levels of the Normal Hierarchy
On the 6-th step Wizard complete 60% of job and hang up doing nothing (buttons "Cancel" and "Help" is active).
chapter "Create REL_TIME Dimension Using the TIME Dimension Wizard", step 1-6 of tutorial =(
http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/11gr1_owb/owb11g_update_getting_started_intro/lesson3/less3_relational.htm
My system characteristics:
Builder client 11.1.0.7.0, warehouse at local computer.
can anybody give me any advice about this problem? =(
thanks in advance.

Had this issue been solved please?
I have just come across the exact same problem and this post is the only one i managed to find which describes exactly what is happening to me.
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like this?
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I have the different fiscal calendars.
Then, I wanna compare the current month fiscal amount and the previous month fiscal amount with AGO function.
The calendars are like below.
Calendar A : fiscal month start April
Calendar B : fiscal month start January
In this case, how should I define the chronological key in the time dimension?
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Half 1H 2H
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Jun-08 3
Jul-08 4
Aug-08 5
Sep-08 6
Oct-08 7
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Dec-08 9
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Feb-09 14
Mar-09 15
Apr-08 16
May-08 17
Jun-08 18
Jul-08 19
Aug-08 20
Sep-08 21
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Nor-08 23
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Edited by: user3532462 on 2008/08/28 2:57

Hi,
I guess it's easier to setup two different time dimensions; one for calendar A and one for calendar B. Use aliases in the Physical Layer.
Good Luck,
Daan Bakboord

Time Dimension Type allows different values in attributes - Bug or Feature?

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature.
But if one has multiple hierarchies on a Time dimension. You have the ability to specify different values for member attributes in different hierarchies.
Example.
Hierarchy A has MIN_ID for it's Member and uses MIN_END_DATE for it's END_DATE
Hierarchy B has MIN_ID for it's Member and uses SESS_END_DATE for it's END_DATE
As per this post and David Greenfield's comment:
Dimension Sort issue when multiple mappings for different hierarchies
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I think that this is not a bug. There is an incompatibility in design which prevents you from using the same attribute differently for both hierarchies.
NOTE: Unlike parent relationship which depends on <dimension, dimension hierarchy>, Dimension Attribute is dependent on <dimension> alone, not dependent on <dimension, dimension hierarchy> combination. Hence it can only take on 1 value for 1 dimension member.
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Visualize a dimension as a long list of members which are built up contiguously on a per hierarchy, per level process using the mapping information saved. Once a member is defined (created) via Hierarchy A, it wont be created once again while loading Hierarchy B but is instead updated or redefined based on Hierarchy B's mapping info.
Assuming the dimension load attempts to load Hierarchy A first and then Hierarchy B,
* Dimension load for Hierarchy A will define the various members using MIN_ID and set the END_DATE attribute to value=MIN_END_DATE
* Dimension load for Hierarchy B will re-define the various members using MIN_ID and re-set or over-write the END_DATE attribute to value=SESS_END_DATE
* In this case, it looks like all members are common for both hierarchies (as both members are mapped to same column MIN_ID) and you would end up with END_DATE=SESS_END_DATE.
Actually whether all members are common to both hierarchies or not depends on the quality of data in your snowflake/star table: if parent level for Hierarchy A as well as Hierarchy B is setup fine then the members will be same set (overlapping in whole). If some rows for MIN_ID have parent column for Hierarchy A setup correctly but parent column for Hierarchy B =null or invalid value then that member will exist in Hierarchy A alone and would contain END_DATE=MIN_END_DATE as the corresponding update along Hierarchy B would fail due to hierarchy data quality issues (join from current level to parent level).
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HTH
Shankar

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SEEK FOR YOU HELP!!!!!
ps:my mother language isn't English ,so it has many erros in the passage

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Hello All,
I have the below scenario where i have Two Facts Fact Quarterly and Fact Yearly but one Time Dimension which has Quarter grain.
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Ex:

Hi naveej,
According to your description, you want to know how to build the relationship with time dimension and fact tables. Right?
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Oracle Warehouse Builder 11GR2 -no time dimension wizard?

Hi,
I am running OWB 11GR2 on top of a 11GR2 database (OEL 5.4 64 bit).
I don't have a time dimension wizard, just a normal wizard. What I do is right-click, new dimension....but no time wizard. How can I activate it?
I have installed everything several times, but no luck...
Can anyone help, please?

Hi
Right Johnny. This happened when we moved to the new UI, all objects can be created using the New 'gallery' style approach, not exactly intuitive for how you remember time dimensions being created but it's still all there.
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thanks. Emilio

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Multiple Fiscal Calendars Displayed in Subject Area Time Dimension

Hi all,
Thanks for taking the time to review my post.
Environment
Oracle BI Applications 7.9.6 Financial Analytics
Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10
Query
The Time dimension on my Subject Areas (Financial Analytics) are showing more period data than I expected.
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Kind Regards,
Gary.

The filtering of the calendar can be done directly on the logical layer.
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set the content as :
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and setup the repository variable MY_MCAL_WID to match with your calendar wid.
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Hi,
1.Actually the drill down Route path is not properly generated with your given key columns in herarchies.
need to give correct key columns
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2001-sunday should be different
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Time Dimension

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Hi Darren,
According to your description, you need a time table to create your time dimension, now you want to know which is better, creating the time table in the project or creating the table in the OLTP data source during ETL process, right?
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it better to generate the time table in data source view using wizard. Please refer to the link below to see the details.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174832.aspx
Then you can create a Date hierarchy Year - Quarter - Month - Week - Date using this time table.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-IN/library/hh231692.aspx
Regards,
Charlie Liao
TechNet Community Support

Locking Periods using the Second Hierarchy in the Time Dimension

Hi,
They are not usiing work status for this...
I am at a client, and they used the second hierarchy in the time dimension to lock periods. If they left the second hierarchy blank, no data can be written to it. To open the open the period, they code the Second Heirarchy with CONS_OPEN. Just wondering if anyone has information on this?
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Thanks,
Chandra

Dear Kacper,
the way I understood, there are two separate questions in this post, namely:
I'm using a shared resource in multiple actors, and the code accessing the resource can take quite some time to execute. How can can I ensure this does not mess up the timing of one or all accessors?
I'm using a shared resource in multiple actors, and the code accessing the resource can generate errors if I try to access it from multiple places. How can I ensure synchronization between all accessors?
As for the first question, the optimal solution to separate the resource prone to timing issues in a different thread/actor. Put anything that is not strictly timed (file access, network comunication) in a separate loop. For each actor, you will get queue references to communicate with, so instead of logging the measurements in the actors where they are made, just queue them up for a different loop to process.
For the second part, the same logic still applies. Ideally, every singular resource should be handled by its own thread and nowhere else, so if anything else needs data from/to said resource, it can send a request to the dedicated thread or actor.
If, for some reason, this is not sufficient, you have to handle synchronization in some other way. There are a lot of techniques here, for example:
Create a named semaphore or lock as a part of the class. Have class functions use the semaphore before accessing the resource.
Use actor messages. Have a "resource in use" or "resource released" messages sent to all users whenever obtaining or releasing said resource.
Have a separate actor handle all resources, awarding them to threads needing them. This method also allows setting priorities between requests.
These are just a few examples, there are many other options.
Please let me know if this was helpful.
Kind regards:
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National Instruments Hungary

Time dimension and chronological key

HI ALL
I WORK ON OBIEE 11G REPORTS
WHAT IS THE EXACT USE OF TIME CHECK BOX AND CHRONOLOGICAL KEY??
AND HOW CAN I USE IT
ANY HELP ??

Hi,
What is the chronological key use?
A. Typically time dimension differs from all other dimensions in one way and that is,
all other dimensions dont care about the order of the values in it.
e.g. in region_dim the values are north, south, west and east. Here nobody wants to see whether north comes first or south comes first. i.e. no order is required here.
in the case of time dimension there needs to be a particular order for all the values present in it.
e.g. 2010 is earliest and 2004 is older. Dec-10 is earliest and jan-10 is older. i.e. the values in the time dimensiion needs to follow a particular sorting order. So the chronological key is the key which tells the obiee that the data is incrementing based on the chronological column.
Here you may get another doubt. i.e. you are having columns like year, half_year, quarter, month, week and day. Here which one should become the chronolgocial key?
Analyse it yourself. If you kept year as chro key then obiee will be confused whether jan-10 is earliest or feb-10 is earliest. Because it knows only that 2010 is earliest and 2009 is older.
So always it should be the lowest level oif the dimension which needs to be the chronological key. In the abouve case it should be date.
You can select either date or date_id(this could be a sequence generator values).
2. what is the use time dimension?
A.If all you want is to achieve drills from Month, Quarter and Year then treat it as a normal dimension and create the levels. But if you want to do calculations like YTD, QTD and MTD then you need to create a time dimension.
http://oraclebizint.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/oracle-bi-ee-101332-understanding-todate-and-ago-achieving-ytd-qtd-and-mtd/
Refer the above link for time dimension.
Award points it is useful.
Thanks
satya
Edited by: Satya Ranki Reddy on May 2, 2012 12:29 AM

Time dimension generated differently in 11gR2

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