Why do Analysis Services Dimensions need to be linked to tab

Miklos_Hollender

les and how to work it around?

For example make a Dimension of the Entry Type in Item Ledger Entry. Yeah I could define a view... but isn't there an easier way?

I am confused because AFAIK it is just basically a big bunch of SUM - GROUP BY and a normal SQL GROUP BY never needed table relations for the fields grouped by? So why do they need it here?

DenSter

If it's not stored in tables then how are you expecting to analyze the data? A Dimension by definition has an external relationship from the fact data. If you don't know how this works I can recommend you read Ralph Kimball's book. Ralph Kimball is the guy that literally wrote the book on data warehouses, and the BI tools in SQL Server (SSAS is one of them) are designed specifically to suit his theories.

Go to Amazon.com and search for "datawarehouse kimball". You can read his original book, but there are also books (written by some of his associates) on the methodology specifically in relation to the SQL Server tools, and there's a book for each major SQL Server version. I started the SQL Server 2005 one and it enlightened me greatly. You'll find out that a LOT of what is currently called 'business intelligence' is in fact NOT business intelligence.