Dimensional Assignment

This is another very basic and simple thing, yet it gave me a very big headache during the early part when I was converting reports from relational to dimensional.

In relational models, we usually assign a value from a prompt this way:

[Month] = ?prompt_month?

This assignment is usually placed in the Detail Filters section, thus it is a filter.

In dimensional models, filtering and assigning a prompt value is quite different. Assigning a value from a prompt is done using the ‘->’ operator:

[Month]->?prompt_month?

This is done in the data item section. Thus this operator is choosing a certain member… which at first, sounds like the same thing as a filter. Well maybe in a sense it is a filter of a single value.

Because in filters you can choose a range (between), several values (in), values greater than or less than (>=, <=),  and not equal to (<> or is it !=). Assignment operator cannot do these things. It can only assign one value.