When you upload or connect to data in WebFOCUS, you create a synonym that can be used to build analytical content. Synonyms define unique names (or aliases) for each object that is accessible from the Reporting Server. Synonyms are useful because they hide the underlying data source location and identity from client applications. They also provide support for extended metadata features of the Reporting Server, such as virtual fields and additional security mechanisms.
Depending on the structure of the synonym that you are creating, the data inside a synonym is typically broken down into categorized roles, such as measures (facts), dimensions, hierarchy levels, and attributes.
A measure or fact is a numeric value, such as Gross Profit or Cost of Goods Sold, that you can aggregate. Numeric fields that cannot be summed, such as product number or order ID, are not categorized as measures. Instead, they may be used in the same way as dimension fields to analyze measures.
A dimension is a way to categorize data or sort output. You can use a dimension to analyze and compare measures. Usually, dimension fields are alphanumeric fields such as Product. Certain dimension fields can be organized into hierarchies to define the relationship between the fields. For example, a Geography hierarchy can contain the Region, Country, State, and City fields.
An attribute is a field or collection of fields that provide additional information about a dimension.
Using the Business View Plus (BV+), you can create a view of your data that represents its business use by creating virtual segments called folders and adding fields to these folders. You have the flexibility to create folders anywhere in the structure, as well as reusing fields in multiple folders. You can then categorize those folders and fields as measures, dimensions, hierarchy levels, or attributes.
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