hierarchy
Multidimensional databases are particularly suited to
data that has a hierarchical structure. That is, data that can be ranked
according to, for example, importance, size, age etc. Common analogies for
hierarchical structures are tree structures or parent-child relationships. In
Application Studio and Office Plus, data is referred to as parent, child or
sibling data. Time is a good example of hierarchical data; ranked as Year,
Quarter, Month, Week, Day. Year, Quarter, Month and Week are all parents of at
least one other element. Quarter, Month, Week and Day are all children of at
least one other element. Parents are usually aggregates of their children.
Elements at the same level of the hierarchy are siblings of each other. An
element with no children is a base element. Parents are referred to as
consolidated elements.