Hierarchy

Finally, let's consider the Hierarchy of the Customers dimension, defined earlier through the use of OLAP Exchange^®.

1.   In the 'Customers' Hierarchy dialog box, expand the hierarchy of the Dimension in the right-hand pane so that all the children for Mexico and Sweden are shown, as in the following figure:

You can see in the expanded Hierarchy for these two Aggregate members that the individual Customers exist within Cities (e.g., Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados and Anotono Moreno Taqeria and others within Mexico D.F.; Berglunds snabbkop in Lulea; and Folk och fa HB in Bracke), which themselves aggregate into Countries (Mexico D.F. into Mexico, and Lulea and Bracke into Sweden). This is precisely the way the Customers dimension was constructed using OLAP Exchange, providing the opportunity to do reporting and analysis, as well as budgeting and forecasting, not only by Customer, but also by City and by Country. As such, OLAP Exchange has exploited the logic of the underlying SQL Server relational database, Northwind, since each transaction recorded the customer's city and county.

2.   Click OK (green check mark) in the 'Customers' Hierarchy dialog box, then click OK in the Dimensions dialog box to return to the Slice.