Hello,

Is there a way to perform a full refresh on a shared dimension? I
currently have several cubes that I process nightly that use shared
dimensions. I perform the process through DTS packages using the built
in Process Cube task. As part of this I perform an incremental update
on the shared dimensions. I have run into the situation where I
ocaasionally need to rebuild the shared dimension to reload the data.
This is fine, except for the fact that it invalidates all cubes using
that dimension. Different cubes are processed at different points
during the night/day, and unfortunately there are dependancies on the
shared dimensions, so I can't just rebuild my shared dimensions before
processing a set of cubes. Is there a way to do a full refresh of the
data in a shared dimension? Or does anybody have another solution that
I may be overlooking.
Thanks in advance for the advice,
JB

You could have several Catalogs with the cubes grouped as per your needs.
That way you would have the flexibility of processing the cubes at different
times.

Btw, why do you need to re-build the dimensions? Just curious.



"jbram" <jbram117 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

What exactly do you mean by a catalog? I have never encountered that
term in Analysis Services before.

As far as rebuilding the dimensions, I recently encountered the
situation where the underlying data in my dimension changed, and doing
an incremental update did not reflect that change. As a result, when
the cube tried to process it failed. Only by doing a full rebuild (I
don't know of a way to do a full refresh of a shared dimension without
rebuilding it. Atleast there is no option for it in the GUI) did I get
the dimension data in sync with the data in the underlying table. But,
as the dimension as shared among several cubes, do a full reprocess of
it invalidates every cube that uses that shared dimension.

Thanks,
JB