Chapter 5 Building Multidimensional Diagrams

Generating Cube Data

Cubes in an OLAP database have to be filled with data from a data warehouse, data mart or operational database. PowerDesigner allows you to generate a text file that will be used by an OLAP tool to create and populate cubes using data from operational sources.


In a PDM multidimensional diagram, each cube is associated with a query. There is one cube per mapping and per data source. The query defined on a cube is used to extract data from a data warehouse or operational database to populate the cubes in the OLAP database. The link between the data warehouse database and the OLAP database is a relational to multidimensional mapping.

For more information about relational to multidimensional mapping, see "Relational to multidimensional mapping" section in the Creating Mappings chapter of the Core Features Guide .

When you generate cube data, PowerDesigner produces one text file for each selected cube and each selected data source. The name of the generated file is a concatenation of the name of the cube and the name of the data source.

Each file contains the following fields:

Field Details
Dimension Lists the attributes of the cube
Member Lists the attribute values
Data fields Contains the values stored in the fact measures

Steps To generate cube data:

  1. In the multidimensional diagram, select Tools→Generate Cube Data.

    The Generate Cube Data dialog box is displayed.
  2. Define a destination directory for the generated file in the Directory box.
  3. Select the generation options in the Options tab.
  4. Select the cubes and data sources for which you want to generate a file from the sub- tabs in the Selection tab.
  5. Click OK.

    The generated files are stored in the destination directory you have defined.

Cube data generation options

You can customize the format of the generated text files from the Generate Cube Data dialog box.

Option Description
Header When selected, includes the name of the attribute at the beginning of the generated text file
Extension Extension of the generated text file, you can choose between .txt and .csv
Separator Separator used between columns
Delimiter String delimiter
Encoding Encoding format to use for generation. You should select the encoding format that supports the language used in your model and the database encoding format
Character Case Defines the character case in the generated text file
No Accent When selected, disallows the use of accents

 

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