Characteristic Relationship Challenges in IP

All,

I'm having a bit of a problem with characteristic relationships in IP.

We have a simple planning cube with no data. It has the characteristics 0CALMONTH, 0MATERIAL, 0SALESORG, 0SALES_GRP, 0SALES_OFFICE, and 0PAYER. We want to build a query which allows us to plan on specifically designated valid combinations of 0SALESORG, 0SALES_GRP, 0SALES_OFFICE, and 0PAYER. However, instead of displaying only the valid combinations we desire, things seem to be showing up as the Cartesian Product of the characteristics.

We thought we could accomplish this through a characteristic relationship and we tried establishing one (first by creating a DSO and then by creating a hierarchy). But all combinations seem to yield only one of the following results:

*Only the first level of the hierarchy

*The Cartesian product

*The 2nd level of the hierarchy (and only the 2nd level) but unfortunately containing ALL options in master data

Has anyone here ever managed to do in IP what I'm trying to do (display only certain valid combinations of characteristics)? If so can you give me a step by step outline of how you did it?

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