Acknowledgements We met as co-workers working together to build Essbase systems for the company we are employed by. Along the way we became more than co-workers, we became friends. Here we are today, co-workers, friends, and now co-authors. Hi all, this is Sarma here, rst I would like to thank my beloved Lord Sri Sathya Sai Baba for giving me an opportunity to write this book. Huge thanks to my wonderful wife Kalyani for being so patient with my late nights, and for her faithful support in writing this book, without her tremendous support this book would not be possible. Special thanks to my sweet kids Sai (8 years old) and Saranya (3 years old) for sacricing their fun and playtime with me. Many thanks to my father and mother for giving me sincere encouragement while writing this book. Thanks to all my special friends who supported me while writing this book. Lastly my utmost thanks to my dearest friend Joe Gomez for his help and cooperation during this challenging period. Hi everyone, Joe here. Boy, that’s a tough act to follow but I’ll try. First and foremost, I would like to thank my lovely wife Rita, my beautiful daughter Ashley and my son Joey for putting up with me (or avoiding me), encouraging me, and supporting me during my distracted state while I was involved in writing this book. I especially want to thank my true friend Sarma Anantapantula for asking me if I would like to join him on this venture because I certainly wouldn’t have thought of it on my own! Collectively, we would like to thank James Lumsden, Acquisition Editor, without whom we would have never written this book or very likely, any other book! Our special thanks go to Bhupali Khule, Technical Editor, for seamlessly working with us to complete this book and Pallavi Kachare, Technical Editor, for performing the code reviews. Our special thanks also go to Ved Prakash Jha, Development Editor, and Rajashree Hamine, Project Coordinator, for making sure we are on target for the launch. We would also like to thank the entire Packt staff for all of their help and guidance throughout the completion of this book. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their reviews and suggestions. Finally we really want to thank all of you who purchased this book. We have put every bit of our Essbase knowledge and experience into this book so you can avoid some of the inevitable pitfalls of learning a new piece of technology. We hope you feel that you made a worthwhile purchase. We certainly feel you did! This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009 8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423 Download at Boykma.Com Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Installing Oracle Essbase 13 Installing the Essbase analytic server 13 Installing Essbase Administration Services 20 Starting the EAS 23 Installing the Essbase Add-in for Microsoft Excel 25 A typical network setup 28 Summary 29 Chapter 2: Essbase Data and Design Considerations 31 Introduction to OLAP 31 Determining the data requirements 32 Determine data storage options 35 Types of Essbase applications 38 Aggregate Storage Option (ASO) 39 Block Storage Option (BSO) 40 Unicode and Non-Unicode applications 42 Creating your rst Essbase application 43 Essbase Application Properties 45 Startup section 46 Security 46 Minimum access level 46 Types of Essbase databases 47 The normal (non-currency) database 47 Essbase currency database 47 Database components 47 The database outline 48 Linked Reporting Objects 48 Partitions 48 This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009 8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423 Download at Boykma.Com Table of Contents [ ii ] Calculation scripts 49 Report scripts 50 Database load rules les 50 Allowing duplicate member names 50 Create your rst Essbase database 51 General tab 53 Dimensions tab 54 Statistics tab 54 Caches tab 55 Transactions tab 56 Storage tab 56 Currency tab 57 Modications tab 58 Types of Essbase users 58 Summary 61 Chapter 3: Building the Essbase Outline 63 Before we begin 63 The Essbase outline—the foundation 64 Dimensions and members 64 Outline member descriptors 66 Generations and Levels 68 Generation 68 Level 69 Types of dimensions 70 Standard dimension 70 The Account dimension type 70 The Time dimension type 70 The Country dimension type 70 No dimension type or general dimension 71 The Currency Partition dimension type 71 The Attribute dimension 72 Dense and Sparse dimensions 72 Build your rst outline 75 Member properties 78 Member consolidations 78 Valid consolidation operators 78 Member storage 80 Member formulas 82 Member alias 84 Alias table 86 Build your rst data rules le 86 This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009 8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423 Download at Boykma.Com Table of Contents [ iii ] Step 1: Start the Data Prep Editor 87 Step 2: Associate the Dimension Build Rules le 88 Step 3: Open data load le or the SQL data source le 89 Step 4: Set the Data Source Properties 91 Step 5: Set the View to Dimension build elds 92 Step 6: Select Dimension build method 93 Generation reference 93 Level reference 94 Parent-child reference 94 Step 7: Format le 98 Step 8: Associate elds with dimensions 101 Step 9: Validate the Dimension Build rules le 103 Update your outline using a rules le 104 Update your outline using the EAS Outline Editor 104 Update using MaxL Shell 106 Executing MaxL from EAS editor 106 Executing MaxL from command prompt 108 Attribute dimensions 109 User Dened Attributes (UDA) 111 Dynamic Time Series 113 Shared members 115 Summary 116 Chapter 4: Loading Data into Essbase 119 Make your data Essbase-friendly 120 Essbase-friendly thoughts 120 Essbase-friendly example 121 Types of data sources 123 Type of data 123 Types of les used for data loads 124 Relational databases 125 Data load methods 125 Data le freeform (no load rule) 125 Essbase export and import (no load rule) 126 Structured data load (load rule used) 130 Microsoft Excel Lock and Send (no load rule) 130 Building your rst data load rules le 131 Step 1: Starting the Data Prep Editor 132 Step 2: Associating the data load rules le 132 Step 3: Opening data load le or the SQL data source le 133 Step 4: Setting the View to Data Load Fields 135 Step 5: Setting the Data Source Properties 135 This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009 8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423 Download at Boykma.Com Table of Contents [ iv ] Step 6: Updating the Data Load Settings 136 Step 7: Setting the Data Load Values 136 Clearing Data Combinations 139 Header Denition 140 Step 8: Associating elds with Data Load Properties 141 Global properties 142 Data Load Properties 142 Step 9: Validating the data load rules le 145 Step 10: Saving the data load rules le 146 Loading data into your database 147 Using the EAS to load data into your Essbase cube 147 Loading data using MaxL 151 Data Load vs. Dimension Build 152 Summary 153 Chapter 5: Calculating your Essbase Cube 155 Calculating your database 156 The Essbase calculation script 156 Essbase outline member formula 158 Calculation types explained 159 Calculation Scripts 160 Stored data member formula 161 Dynamic Calc and Dynamic Calc and Store 161 Essbase calculation terminology 162 Default database calculation script 163 Calc All 165 Calculate/Aggregate dimension 166 Essbase Calc commands and functions 167 Data declarations 167 Control ow 168 FIX/ENDFIX 168 EXCLUDE/ENDEXCLUDE 171 Functional 173 SET command functions 173 Conditionals 176 IF/ENDIF 176 Boolean 178 Relationship functions 179 Operators 181 Member set 182 Range (Financial) 183 Forecasting 184 Statistical 185 This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009 8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423 Download at Boykma.Com . July 20 09 8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 794 23 Download at Boykma.Com Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Installing Oracle Essbase 13 Installing the Essbase analytic server 13 Installing Essbase. source le 89 Step 4: Set the Data Source Properties 91 Step 5: Set the View to Dimension build elds 92 Step 6: Select Dimension build method 93 Generation reference 93 Level reference 94 Parent-child. dimensions 1 09 User Dened Attributes (UDA) 111 Dynamic Time Series 113 Shared members 115 Summary 116 Chapter 4: Loading Data into Essbase 1 19 Make your data Essbase- friendly 120 Essbase- friendly