Dimensions Missing From Rule

[djoughin]

Hi
I've been trying to understand a rule wriiten by someone else in our system.

The rule is of the form ['610000']=N:DB....etc

The rule works but what's puzzling me is that there are two dimensions missing on the left that do not exist in the cube on the right.

I thought you had to put values in for all dimensions.

The two missing dimensions are 'Cost Centre' and 'Office' but the rule works and puts values in a 'Cost Centre' called 'No Cost Centre' and an 'Office' called 'No Office'.

I tried to put other Cost Centres and Offices in the rule such as ['610000','My Office','My Cost Centre'] but no values came through.

I checked the feeders and there is a feeder for this rule along he lines of [------]=>DB(------'No Cost Centre','No Office'------);

So it looks like the feeder tells the rule what the elements should be in the missing dimensions and overrides any values you put in the rule.

Is this how it is supposed to work and if so is this recommended practice?

Thanks

[Steve Vincent]

left of the equals is what is affected, right is how it's affected.

sounds like they are feeding only 2 values, which is not the same as calculating only 2 values. depending on the requirements (zero suppressed views or not) that could work but it's doing too much in the calculation part of the rule (affecting all values in cost centre for instance) so i'd go with putting them on the left too. i usually write a rule as tight on the left as i can get it, just so long as it doesn't mean i'm repeating code 100 times with slight variations.

Code: Select all

['610000','No Cost Centre','No Office']=N:DB....etc 

It doesn't have to have all values on the left, but if you only need a couple affected it makes sense to do so and keep calculation down to a minimum

[djoughin]

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

I'll probably go with putting the values required on the left side of the rule and removing the specific references to these values in the feeder.

I'm still wondering though if it is common for the feeders to contain references to specific elements that will override references to the same specific elements in the left side of a rule. I can't find any reference in the documentation to feeders being used in this way. I didn't think that feeders could affect where a rule put it's results.