The Virtual Dimension wizard takes you through the creation of a virtual dimension.
The main benefits of virtual dimensions are storage savings and reduced cube processing time. Aggregation data for virtual dimensions is not stored. It is calculated in memory. Therefore, if you add a virtual dimension to a cube, its storage usage and processing time do not increase as when you add an ordinary dimension.
Virtual dimensions are also used to display information from a single dimension on opposing axes. This type of presentation is helpful to users who want to cross reference dimension members with attributes of those members. These attributes are called member properties and are the basis for defining virtual dimensions.
For example, a user requests to analyze Production by cross referencing Factory Name and Factory Type. If the Location dimension already contains Factory Name and the Location dimension table contains a Factory Type column, add Factory Type as a member property and create a virtual dimension from it. After you add the virtual dimension to the cube, the user can cross reference Factory Names and Factory Types and compare the Production values at the intersections.
A member property must be created before its associated virtual dimension. For more information, see Creating Member Properties in the Administrator’s Guide.
For more information about virtual dimensions, see Virtual Dimensions in the Administrator’s Guide.
The Virtual Dimension wizard appears when you expand the Library folder, right-click the Virtual Dimensions folder, and then click New Virtual Dimension.
Choose this option to bypass the wizard introductory step the next time you start the wizard. If you choose this option, you can return to the introductory step in the future by clicking Back in the second step of the wizard.
Choose this option to go to the next step of the wizard.
Choose this option to cancel the completion of the wizard and return to the OLAP Manager.
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