Data Explorer
Data Explorer
Data Explorer provides a graphical tool for reporting on OLAP data from a FinanceHub Server enabled Oracle OLAP database.
OLAP data is stored in ‘Cubes’. The edges of the cubes are dimensions, and they represent business organisational elements such as Cost Centres, Products and Time Periods. A cube may have several dimensions of varying sizes, and dimensions may have hundreds or thousands of values.
An important aspect of dimensions is that they are usually hierarchical, and this allows the data in the cube to be aggregated into higher levels in the organisations, and it also allows a structured access route to the data (by ‘drilling down’ through the hierarchy).
Cubes can therefore be very large, and commonly they are populated with data in particular regions but empty in others. The ‘emptiness’ of the cube is referred to as ‘sparsity’. It is important therefore to have a good understanding of the dimensions used by the organisation when selecting data for reporting