A dimension is a structure that categorizes facts and measures allowing users to answer business questions. Commonly used dimensions are people, products, place, and time. Dimensions typically provide filtering, grouping, and labeling.

The elements of a dimension can be organized as a hierarchy—a set of parent-child relationships where a parent member summarizes its children.

For example, cities are members of regions; products typically are part of product groups, and individual expense items are grouped into types of expenditure.

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Example of a parent-child hierarchy (Country and cities)

Levels of data range from the most summarized (up) to the most detailed (down). Each level represents a different group within the same dimension. For example, a time dimension can include levels such as years, months, and days.

You can add, name, and rename dimensions, define a hierarchy level, add levels, and set up attributes.