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Configure Join Behavior on a Dimension

You can configure a dimension hierarchy to specify the default matching and filtering behavior used by the AtScale query engine.

About this task​

You can configure a dimension hierarchy to specify which dimension members to include in query results by default - only those that match to rows in the fact (inner join behavior) or all dimension members (outer join behavior).

The default behavior is to only include members that exist in both tables (inner join behavior). Changing this default behavior is not recommended on large dimensions, as this can result in longer running queries and bigger result sets.

Some BI clients allow users to specify the desired behavior on the client side. You can choose whether AtScale should allow client overrides or to enforce the settings configured in AtScale.

note

Note: If a dimension has multiple hierarchies that share a common key level, you should configure the same behavior on all hierarchies in the dimension.

Procedure​

  1. In Design Center, open the Repo Browser.

  2. Open the model you want to edit, then click the Canvas tab.

  3. Locate the dimension you want to edit, click its context menu, and select Edit. The Edit Dimension panel opens.

  4. In the Hierarchies section, locate the hierarchy you want to edit, click its context menu and select Edit. The Edit Hierarchy panel opens.

  5. In the Data Handling section, enable or disable the Exclude values with no fact data option.

    • When enabled, query results only include members that join to the fact dataset (inner join behavior).
    • When disabled, query results include all members of the dimension, even those that have no matching entries in the fact dataset (outer join behavior).

  6. Click Apply.