Small Line Item Dimension ???

[Former Member]

Hi, I have a dimension with only 1 characteristic. It is not a document type characteristic and in fact only has a few entries compared to the fact table. Is it OK to set it as a line item dimension to eliminate the dimid link? If not then why not?

Thanks for any opinions and experiences...

[Former Member]

I found the best description at the below link. Thanks for all the help...

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_bw33/helpdata/en/a7/d50f395fc8cb7fe10000000a11402f/content.htm

[Former Member]

If you have a single characteristic in a dimension with few values, you don't normally set that as a line item dimension (for characteristics like 0customer). You are supposed to set it as line item for characteristics like Purchase order number...

As you said, you set it as a line item dimension to eliminate one additional join. It there were too many characteristic values then the join will take place many times with the dimension and master data table, which is when it makes sense to eliminate the additional link.

[former_member93896]

Hello Kenneth,

yes, that is one way to improve performance. If the system runs on Oracle, turn off the "high cardinality" flag for this dimension so you get the better indexing (BITMAP) on the line item dimension.

If you use a dimension for only one characteristic, obviously, you limit the number of characteristics you can have in general on that InfoCube. But if you don't expect this InfoCube to grow a lot in terms of characteristics, then using line item dimensions is OK.

Regards,

Marc Bernard

SAP NetWeaver RIG, US BI