Change Aliases

In the previous section (Creating a Cube via OLAp Exhange), when we created the Customers dimension, we created an Alias Group that consisted of ContactName. We will proceed by changing the Alias Group, by removing ContactName and substituting CustomerID, the entries for which are also unique for each Customer.

1.   From the PowerOLAP ribbon, go to Data tab then in the OLAP Exchange control group select Modify Relational Dimension command.
The Modify Dimension From Relational Source dialog box appears.

2.   Select a dimension (E.g., Customers) and then click on OK.

3.   Click OK in the message box to proceed with modifying the Dimension.

4.   Click Next in the Define Members dialog box.

5.   Now, in the Define Alias dialog box,
select ContactName in the right-hand pane.

6.   Click on the Delete Group button.

7.   Click on the Add Group button.

8.   Select CustomerID from among the Fields list in the left-hand pane,
then click on the Add to alias group icon in the center of the dialog box.

Note: Alternatively, you can also make use of the Add or remove button at the middle section of the dialog so there is no need to delete the group but just change the fields that should appear in it.

Tip


In the Define Aliases dialog box you can create more than one Alias Group—for example, you could have added CustomerID as Group 2, maintaining ContactName as Group 1. Also, you can add more than one field within a Group by using the Add to alias group button—the resulting aliases will be a concatenation of selected fields. REMEMBER, Aliases must be unique for each Member.

9.   Click Next through successive dialog boxes, then click Finish in the Relational Dimension Summary box. (Just like in the previous procedure a dialog box will appear that will ask user if the template should be saved.)

10. Click Yes on the succeeding message box to start rebuilding of Cubes.

11. Click OK in the message box that reports updated points.

Seeing results in PowerOLAP^®

Now, to take a look at the results in PowerOLAP^®:

1.   From the PowerOLAP ribbon, go to Model tab then select the Dimensions command.
The Dimensions dialog box appears.

2.   Double-click on the Customers dimensions.

3.   In the 'Customers' Hierarchy dialog box, click on the Alias Groups icon.

The Alias Groups dialog box appears as in the following figure, with CustomerID as the new Alias Group, and its unique entries in the column below it, alongside the corresponding Members for the Customers dimension.

4.   Click OK until you return to the PowerOLAP main window.