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Part IX: Business Intelligence
relate any tables without appropriate relationships by dragging and dropping the related
columns between tables. If the new relationship is valid, the model shows the new relation-
ship without additional prompting. If errors occur, the Edit Relationship dialog appears, as
shown in Figure 53-3. A common issue when working with multiple data sources is different
data types. For instance, tables from different databases containing the same key informa-
tion could be a 16-bit integer in one table and 32-bit integer in another. You can address
this situation by using a named query to cast the 16-bit integer as its 32-bit equivalent.FIGURE 53-3
Editing relationships within your cube.You can also access the Edit Relationship dialog by double-clicking an existing relation-
ship, by right-clicking the diagram, and from the toolbar and menu selections. Be sure to
defi ne all relationships, including relationships between different columns of the fact table
and the same dimension table (for example, OrderDate and ShipDate both relate to the Time
dimension table), because this enables role-playing dimension functionality when you cre-
ate a cube.Refining the Data Source View
It is important to keep in mind the end user when designing your data source view. Table
and column names should make sense to the person who browses the cube. Following are a
few best practices:■ Set friendly names on tables and columns in the Properties pane.■ (^) Use named queries to change codes such as M or F to Male and Female.
■ Add descriptions for tables and columns for nonobvious notes.
■ (^) Do simple, single row and table-wide calculations in the DSV.
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