Dimension elements

A dimension can define multiple dimension elements for different levels of summation.

For example, all the elements that relate to the structure of a sales organization might comprise one dimension. The following figure shows the dimension elements that the Accounts dimension defines.

Figure 1. Dimension elements in the accounts dimension

Three dimension elements within the accounts dimension are shown. Each element is in an oval. The dimension elements are: "Region", "Territory", and "Account". A solid line connects "Region" and "Territory". Another solid line connects "Territory" and "Account".

Dimensions are made up of hierarchies of related elements. Because of the hierarchical aspect of dimensions, users are able to construct queries that access data at a higher level (roll up) or lower level (drill down) than the previous level of detail. The figure shows the hierarchical relationships of the dimension elements:

The account elements roll up to the territory elements
The territory elements roll up to the region elements

Users can query at different levels of the dimension, depending on the data they want to retrieve. For example, users might perform a query against all regions and then drill down to the territory or account level for detailed information.

Dimension elements are usually stored in the database as numeric codes or short character strings to facilitate joins to other tables.

Each dimension element can define multiple dimension attributes, in the same way dimensions can define multiple dimension elements.