ISCHILDOF (dimension, parent, child)

Description:

This function returns true if the child is a child of parent in dimension and false otherwise.

This function is designed specifically to allow you to check if there exists a valid parent -child relationship between two members. The result of the function is displayed as a Boolean value. If the child member that is specified in the function, is the child of the parent member also specified in the function then the function returns "True" or else if there is the member is not the child of the member specified as the parent, or if there is no relationship whatsoever between the two members, then the function returns the value which equals "False".The function takes as a parameter the name of the dimension, that has the child and parent level members, the name of the parent member with what the child member is compared with, and the last parameter is the name of the child member that is being checked for belonging to the specified parent or not.

Syntax: IsChildOf (Dimension, Parent, Child)

• Dimension : Enter the name of the dimension which exists in this database mentioned above and is the dimension within which you want to check the relationship between 2 members / alternatively enter the cell reference which has the name of such a dimension.
• Parent : Enter the name of a parent level member for which you want to ensure the relationship with one or more child level members whose name you specify as the next parameter / enter the cell reference which has such a member as its value.
• Child : Enter the name of a child level member for which you want to ensure the relationship with a parent level member whose name has been specified as the parameter mentioned above / enter the cell reference which has such a member as its value.

Remarks

• The name of the dimension must be a valid name and should exist in the database.
• The dimension and in it the member names for both parent level members and child level members must exist within this database and it should be referenced by the accurate and exact name.
• All arguments are compulsory and neither argument is optional.

Example

=IsChildOf ("Region", "ASIA", "Japan")

-returns true if the child member "Japan" belongs to the parent "ASIA" from the dimension Region and false otherwise. (Value returned is: true)

 

Let us take the example of a cube in PowerOLAP which requires data that is the Boolean value for whether or not a child belongs to a parent member within a dimension name which has the members, all of which are to be given as parameters to the function. If in the same dimension in another member or in another dimension in another cube, you want to display this accessed Boolean value for the parameter supplied to the function then it is appropriate to use the ISCHILDOF function to access this value. In this case we can write a formula in the cube in PowerOLAP to access this value to check for a specific child member under a specific parent for a specified dimension. With this function one can write the Boolean value returned to another member that is supposed to hold this value as fact data or you can also write this value to a different dimension or a different member in a different cube.



The screen above shows a formula for the ISCHILDOF function. The formula writes a value into the "MetaDataValues" dimension, into the "IsChildOf" member. In the formula, the ISCHILDOF function takes three parameters, which are, the name of the dimension whose members are accessed, the name of the parent member which has the children you wish to access and the name of the child member, with which you wish to determine the parent-child relationship. If the child is under the specified parent then the function returns true or else it returns "False". The formula accesses the hierarchy defined in the dimension and determines the parent-child relationship. The function above accesses the members from the "Time (Periods)" dimension, and from there it determines if "Period_04" is a child of "Qtr_1" or not. The above function returns "False" because the child does not belong to a specified member.