I am trying to work out how role playing dimensions work, but I do not
really get it to work.

As I understand it, a role playing dimension is set up on one set of data,
and can then be linked multiple times to the cube with different names and
be bound to different fields.

So... I have an Order Date (OD) and Shipping Date (SD).
Lets say OD contains 1st and 2nd of January, and SD contains 3rd and 4th of
February.
On which column do I base my Date Dimension now? Both columns have values
missing in the other, after building it I will not be able to join it to
both - or will I?

Do I set up a view with a UNION on both columns to get a complete set of
dates and build on that?
Really puzzled on this on...
Ralf

A best practice is to create a Date dimension that has a range of date
from the Jan 1 of the first year with data to Dec 31 of the last year
with data (or of a future year you suppose to be far enough if you
don't want to add members each year).

One of the drawbacks of the date dimension built with existing dates is
that when a user navigates data, she cannot see dates without data and
it is nasty to see (a week/month with 0 sales is still an interesting
information...).

Marco Russo
http://www.sqlbi.eu
http://www.sqljunkies.com/weblog/sqlbi

Ralf Mayer wrote: