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Creating and editing measures


All IBM Alphablox cubes must have one or more numeric or non-numeric measures defined.

To define measures in a IBM Alphablox cube:

  1. Log into the IBM Alphablox home page as a member of the administrators group.
  2. Click the Administration tab and click the Cubes link.
  3. Select the IBM Alphablox cube from the list of cubes and click the Edit button. The IBM Alphablox Cube Administration dialog for the selected cube will appear in a new web page window.
  4. In the cube navigation tree, click on the Measures node. A measures page displays.
  5. In the Measures Fact Table field, type the fully-qualified name of the fact table as it is defined in the underlying relational database (for example, CVSAMPLE.SALESFACT). Alternatively, select the correct schema, catalog, and table combination in the lists to automatically insert the fact table name.
  6. After the fact table has been specified, create a new measure by clicking the Create New Measure button.
  7. In the Name field, replace "New Measure" with a name for your new measure. Allowable characters for measure names are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore (_), and space. The name specified appears in result sets sent to IBM Alphablox applications, so type a name that is easy to read and descriptive of its content. For example, if the measure calculates the sum of sales at a store, you can name the measure Store Sales.
  8. In the Expression field, type a valid expression. The Expression Builder tool can be used to assist in entering the correct syntax for columns and functions. Shortcut buttons are available for frequently used functions (AVG, COUNT, MAX, MIN, and SUM), but you can manually enter any valid function you need. These functions are used in generating the SQL sent to the underlying database to calculate the new measure. The following examples are expressions defining the COGS measure:
    CVSAMPLE example: SUM(@col(CVSAMPLE.SALESFACT.COGS))
    QCC example: SUM(@col(qcc_fact.sales - cost))
  9. Click the Apply button to add the measure to the list.
  10. Repeat these steps as needed to define any other measures you need. To delete a measure, click on the measure label in the navigation tree, then click the Delete Selected button below the tree.
  11. Click the OK button when you finish modifying your IBM Alphablox cube definition, or proceed on to define the dimensions and levels.
    Note: Any changes made to a started IBM Alphablox cube do not take effect until the cube is either restarted or refreshed.

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