Benefits of using Detail objects versus Dimensions

[atsdatajunkie]

Can anyone give me some practical examples of the benefits of using detail objects instead of making them dimensions? Currently, just about all of the non-measure objects in all of our universes were created as dimensions. This ensures that they can all be used for filtering and for merging with other dimensions from other universes. The things that are usually used as examples of dimensions (company name or address) are actually things that we sometimes filter on. (We'll filter for state in the address and sometimes city, and sometimes users prefer to have a prompt for company name rather than account number if they don't know the account number off the top of their head.) So if I understand correctly, those have to be dimensions if I want to be able to use them in filter criteria.

So is there any advantage to making objects details rather than dimensions? Some use cases or examples for when having an object stored as a detail is better than storing it as a dimension?

Thanks!

 

[blom0344]

From way back when ..

When synchronizing dataproviders over common dimensions one could take detail objects from both sides and use them in one report. It was also perfectly well possible to filter on detail objects and assign LOV's to them.

That was all of great importance prior to Webi tooling and would still be valid for desktop intelligence now..

Does Webi support creating reports based on multiple queries / universes? It is a feature sorely missed nowadays (I'm talking about how the competition handles things)

Ties Blom

 

[atsdatajunkie]

We only have Webi, so I haven't even seen Deski. But I have been able to successfully create Webi reports that pull data from two different universes. The key is having a single dimension you can merge on. Once you create the two queries (making sure you have one common dimension in both), in the report, you have an option for "Merge Dimensions". In that dialog is where you specify the common dimension. At that point, I can usually combine information from the two queries into a single row based on that common dimension.

I say "usually" because sometimes it doesn't work properly. Sometimes it won't let me combine the information - gives me an "incompatible object" error. I end up having to create a variable that contains the field I want, and making the variable a Detail related to the merged dimension, instead of it being a Dimension itself. Once it's a detail object, I can combine the information into a single row.

This is what got me to looking into the whole Detail versus Dimension issue to start with. Should the information I'm trying to combine in the reports be defined as Details inside the universe instead? If they were, would it merge the universe queries easier? And how would that impact any other reports already using those objects? I saw something in the documentation saying that you couldn't filter based on a Detail, only on a Dimension - which would break a whole bunch of stuff if it's correct. So I'm just hoping to get some more clarity on the whole Detail versus Dimension picture and when it might be better to use Details instead.

 

[blom0344]

In the 'old' days the 'incompatible object' error was thrown when you tried to add an object that was not associated with one of the synchronized dimensions. With Deski (former full client) you could synchronize set of dimensions with one another (coming from different universes and even from different databasetypes)

From a technical point of view a dimension would be a key (like customernumber). Defining the customername as a dimension would be hazardous , since 2 customers might have the exact same name. So, to keep things tidy the name was used as a detail and the key as dimension.

Since I am no Webi expert I cannot comment on the detail/ filter issue. (Though it strikes me as odd..)

Ties Blom

 

[skrandel]

The advantage to details has not changed at all.

The problem is how they are shown in the universe. Users simply don't understand how and object can have other objects.

We have 170 universes. I would bet that we don't have more than 20 detail objects in total.

Steve Krandel
Intuit