OLAP Reporting Requirements

In this section:

OLAP reporting requires some preparation both of the data to be reported against and of the report itself. In many instances, this preparation is entirely transparent, having been done before a user encounters an OLAP report. However, for developers who are charged with OLAP-enabling data and reports and for users who wish, and are authorized, to OLAP enable their personal reports, the following summary will be useful.


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OLAP-Enabling Data

Reference:

Behind the scenes of any WebFOCUS OLAP report is a hierarchical data structure. For example, a typical hierarchy of sales regions might contain a GEOGRAPHY category including the fields (in descending order) Region, State, and City. Region, the highest level in this hierarchy, would contain a list of all available regions within GEOGRAPHY. State, the second highest level in the hierarchy, would contain a list of all available states within those regions, and others.

In WebFOCUS, the hierarchical structure is generally built into the Master File for a data source, where it becomes active for any report that uses that data source. Developers or administrators who are responsible for describing data in a Master File can use WebFOCUS language. The keyword WITHIN defines the elements in each dimension in the hierarchy.

For those interested in the underlying code, see OLAP Hierarchy Syntax Summary and the Describing Data With WebFOCUS Language manual for details.

In addition, those working in Developer Studio have access to a variety of graphical tools that make it easy to drag fields into position to form a hierarchy. The hierarchy may be global to all procedures or local to one procedure.

For details about these related tools, see the Describing Data With Graphical Tools manual.



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Reference: OLAP Hierarchy Syntax Summary

For those interested in the underlying code, the following syntax applies:


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OLAP-Enabling a Report

Reference:

In addition to using OLAP-enabled data, a report must be enabled to support OLAP analysis. OLAP-enabling a report consists of specifying how a user will interact with and drill down on OLAP data.

The primary interactions occur in the report itself. In addition, you can choose to expose two supplementary tools, the OLAP Selections panel and the OLAP Control Panel.



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Reference: Setting OLAP Reporting Options

Developer Studio

In Developer Studio, OLAP options are available on the Options Features tab in Report Painter. The relevant options (Enable OLAP and Automatic Drill Down) are located in the OLAP section of the tab, as shown in the following image.

Tip: In Report Painter, you can also make OLAP selections from the OLAP option on the Report menu. For more information about using Report Painter, see the Creating Reports With Report Painter manual.

Enable OLAP

The Enable OLAP options in Developer Studio control how users can interact with an OLAP report and access OLAP tools.

For published content delivered to Managed Reporting users, these decisions are made by Managed Reporting content developers. However, users who are creating their own reports can OLAP enable them and control the OLAP interfaces and following drill-down options.

Automatic Drill Down

These options enable you to sort instantly from high to low or low to high for selected report columns:

Note: Explicit drill downs in a StyleSheet (if they exist) take precedence over OLAP-enabled hyperlinks. If you click a hyperlink associated with an explicit drill down, the behavior will be defined by the StyleSheet, rather than by the AutoDrill On or All settings.

Build Auto Drill Dimensions

This option opens the Dimension Builder using the Master File you selected for the report.



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Reference: OLAP Report Syntax Summary

For those interested in the underlying code, the following syntax applies:



Example: OLAP Report Syntax

The following code example turns OLAP on, calls a customer help file, sets drill-down capabilities for dimensions and measures, and sets the OLAP Selections panel to open the report:

-OLAP ON
-OLAP HELP http://webserver/olaphelp/olaphelp.htm
TABLE FILE CENTORD
SUM COST PRICE
BY PLANT
ON TABLE SET AUTODRILL ALL
ON TABLE SET OLAPPANE TOP
ON TABLE SET ONLINE-FMT HTML
END

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OLAP Terminology

The following table describes OLAP terms that may be useful as you work in the WebFOCUS OLAP tools. Some of these terms are directly reflected in the interfaces of the OLAP Selections panel and the OLAP Control Panel. Others provide useful background information.

The first column of the following table provides the term and the second column provides the definition.

Term

Definition

Dimension

Group or list of related elements, usually structured in a hierarchy. For example, a Location dimension could include the elements Country, Region, State, and City arranged in a hierarchy where Country is the top level and City is the base level. Dimensional data usually describes the measured item.

Hierarchy

Logical parent-child structure of elements within a dimension.

Measure

Type of item that specifies the quantity of another element with which it is associated. A measure typically defines how much or how many. For example, Units, Revenue, and Gross Margin are measures in the Account dimension and specify how many units were sold, how much revenue was generated, and at what profit margin, respectively.

Pivot

Manipulating (or rotating) the view of a report by moving a field (or a group of fields) from a column to a row, or row to column.


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