Easy way for users to add new members or measures?

Hi I am wondering if there is an easy way for users to add new members or measures if the office dimension had a new office or if the user wanted to create a new calc?

I write enabled a dimension, but it had no effect in the BIDS or in Excel. I see the menu options change when browsing the write-enabled dimension in the BIDS, but "create sibling" and "create child" are disabled. I have full permissions and the criteria for those options to be enabled when writeback is enabled is met.

But even if write enabling was working, does it update the source data? From the books online, it seems like it would update dimension source data, but not measures or data points. which brings me to another question. Where do you enable writeback on measures and cubes? I don't see those properties or menu options.

Thanks

Hello. Write enabled dimensions are not client features, only server based. You can only use this in BI-Dev Studio.

When you add dimension members to a write enabled dimension these members are written to the source dimension table.

Write enabling a cube permits you to write to cells in the cube. To write enable a cube is a server based feature. The only way to activate this is in the Management Studio. You must have a client that supports writeback, not all do.

To add new measures to a cube requires a client that support this. ProClarity is one client that does support this but these calculated measures are not created in the cube but on a ProClarity server.

HTH

Thomas Ivarsson

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Hello Thomas,

Thanks for the response.

I found this in the books online:

Business users can update a write-enabled dimension by using client applications that support dimension writeback.

The following restrictions to dimension writeback apply:

When you create a new member, you must include every attribute in a dimension. You cannot insert a member without specifying a value for the key attribute of the dimension. Therefore, creating members is subject to any constraints (such as non-null key values) that are defined on the dimension table. You should also consider columns optionally specified by dimension properties, such as columns specified in the CustomRollupColumn, CustomRollupPropertiesColumn or the UnaryOperatorColumn dimension properties.

Dimension writeback is supported only for star schemas. In other words, a dimension must be based on a single dimension table directly related to a fact table. After you write-enable a dimension, Analysis Services validates this requirement when you deploy to an existing Analysis Services database or when you build an Analysis Services project.|||

Hello. I have not seen a client that directly support writeback to dimensions, yet. If you have found a client that supports this I would not recommend to use it because you will have no control of what will happen to your dimensions and your cube. I must admit that I have no good advice regarding this.

I have used dimension writeback to support the creation of account members that do not exist in the source system.

Your write enable a cube/partition in SQL Server Management Studio.

Regards

Thomas Ivarsson

|||Interesting that you have to enable cube or partition writeback outside of the BIDS. Thanks for the feedback!