Introduction
In this chapter, we will build components into our relational environment that will allow us to successfully build an Essbase database and facilitate drill-through reporting. Although we are discussing relational data sources, the properties, attributes, and concepts discussed in this chapter can be used to build hierarchies off data sources such as flat files for example. The techniques used here can be used in tools like Essbase Administrative Services, Essbase Integration Services, and Essbase Studio. This chapter also has recipes on the Essbase Outline Extractor and Star Analytics. These two tools allow us to extract hierarchies from existing Essbase cubes. We would use these tools to extract existing hierarchies or modify existing hierarchies to build all or parts of our star schema.