Dimension Creation

When you define dimensional objects such as cubes, you describe the logical relationships that help store data in a more structured format. For example, to define a dimension, you describe its attributes, levels, and hierarchies.

OWB provides the following two methods to define dimensions:

• Create Dimension Wizard: Creates a fully functional dimensional object along with implementation objects that store the dimension data. Provides default settings for the most common values. Use this wizard when you want to quickly create a dimension without manually specifying settings.

  
  

  See Also: "Defaults Used By the Create Dimension Wizard" under Creating Dimensions in Oracle Warehouse Builder Data Modeling, ETL, and Data Quality Guide

  
  

• Dimension Editor: Use editors to create or edit dimensional objects. Use editors to create a dimensional object when you want to specify settings that are different from the default settings used by the wizards. Also use editors to create dimensional objects that use certain advanced options that are not available when you use wizards. For example, to create a relational dimension that uses a snowflake schema implementation, you must use the editor. When you use the wizard, the default implementation method used is the star schema. However, you can edit a dimension that you created using the Create Dimension Wizard and modify it to use a snowflake schema implementation.