Load with Aliases - Data Management

Robert Angel

Hi,

other than creating explicit mappings to translate every alias to their member equivalent, is there any way to load content with Aliases.

i.e.

Typical actual file to load into PBCS

Field1 is Cost Centre, but using aliases rather than member name

I want to dynamically translate Field1 on load, but don't want to create explicit mappings for the 2000+ members and counting in PBCS.

Possible?

JohnGoodwin

I just used standard functionality, though saying that it is really designed for member name, as if you try to select target members in the mappings then it will be member name not alias, it is also only possible using the numeric load method in the rule as it loads using an essbase load rule, if you select all data types the load will fail with member not found as it uses the outline load utility behind the scenes, also you may have issues with drill through with aliases, you would to check that.

JohnGoodwin

Which data load method are you using and what is the error are you getting when attempting to load

Cheers

John

Robert Angel

Hi John,

this is only at the planning stage, not getting an error, just trying to plan around a requirement.

The input would be file based.

My 'challenge' is that one of the dimensions in the proposed solutions has very volatile metadata which if delivered on the source members would result in a rapidly growing number of sparse dimension combinations and an increasing amount of sparseness over the years.

As an alternative I had thought of having homogeneous member names with the aliases handling the volatility, just changing the aliases as the underlying members come and go (and yes, I know this changes history!)

My challenge then is how to load via aliases into PBCS via data management, without manually maintaining a large explicit translation.

JohnGoodwin

Here is a simple example.

Member alias

DM load rule option

DM full process with alias

Data loaded

Robert Angel

Thanks - your screenshots definitively prove that it is possible using just 'out of the box', can you also tell me if there are any additional configuration steps that need to be in place for this, or is handling default alias as an alternative to member name just standard functionality.

thanks again for myself and for the wider EPM community,

Robert.

JohnGoodwin

I just used standard functionality, though saying that it is really designed for member name, as if you try to select target members in the mappings then it will be member name not alias, it is also only possible using the numeric load method in the rule as it loads using an essbase load rule, if you select all data types the load will fail with member not found as it uses the outline load utility behind the scenes, also you may have issues with drill through with aliases, you would to check that.

Robert Angel

Many thanks for the comprehensive and obviously well considered answer, much appreciated and exactly what I need!

I take it for any more complex translations / mappings you would resort to ODI if on premise, or pre-processing if PBCS?

thanks,

Robert.

JohnGoodwin

Depends on the complexity and requirements, PBCS and on-premise do have SQL mapping scripts available, on-premise also has jython scripting.

Robert Angel

Hi John,

colour me very interested, I had not seen any mention of this before, could you kindly provide a link to any documentation specifically on SQL mapping in conjunction with PBCS???

thank you!!

JohnGoodwin

Try - https://docs.oracle.com/cloud/latest/epm-common/ERPIA/creating_mapping_scripts.htm