Order Categories Using A Global Preference Setting; Create Unbalanced Level Hierarchies Within A Dimension - IBM Cognos User Manual

6. In the Sort as box, click either Alphabetic or Numeric to specify whether
values are to be interpreted as text or numbers during the sort.
7. Click OK.

Order Categories Using a Global Preference Setting

You can specify that all categories in the model use a particular sort order, rather
than manually setting the order-by preference for each category.
You can still specify a different Order by association for a given level/drill
combination. However, if you do not, the category label is used as the sort value,
and ascending is always the order used.
Procedure
1. Open the model and, from the File menu, click Model Properties.
2. On the General tab, select Use the preference setting in the Default category
ordering box to order categories globally, and click OK.
3. From the File menu, click Preferences and click the General tab.
4. Select the Order categories by default check box and click OK.

Create Unbalanced Level Hierarchies Within a Dimension

You can use subdimensions to provide different levels of detail for specific
categories, also known as unbalanced hierarchies.
For example, some branch offices may report product sales down to the item level,
whereas others may report only to the product level. You can create a
subdimension for those branches that report to the item level.
Similarly, your time dimension may contain levels for year, quarter, and month,
but your OLAP report users may not need to see the month values for the
previous year. You can use a subdimension to retain month levels in the current
year while removing them from the previous year.
Note: If a level contains a subdimension, the name of the level appears with an
ellipsis next to it on the Dimension Map.
Categories in a subdimension are independent of levels in other parts of the
dimension. Changes made to levels outside the subdimension do not affect
categories in a subdimension, and vice versa.
Procedure
1. Open the Categories diagram and select the category below which you want to
create a subdimension.
2. From the Diagram menu, click Create/Delete Subdimension.
When you expand the selected category in the Categories diagram, you see a
box enclosing that category and all categories below it.
3. Modify the categories in and outside the subdimension, as required.
4. Repeat for as many subdimensions as your users need for their business
analyses.
Chapter 4. Structuring Your Data Into Dimensions
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