Creating degenerate dimensions

You can easily target a column in a source with a column property called Analyze Measure.

By enabling Analyze Measure, this indicates the column is a measure in a degenerate dimension. This allows you to use a measure like an attribute in order to group other measures. This method can be used for most use cases.

If you need to use the column's level as the grain of another table, you should create a degenerate dimension using the procedure described below rather than using the Analyze Measure property.

Note: You will need to enable legacyFeatures for your account before creating your degenerate dimension. For more information on the legacyFeatures command, see Administrative Commands in the Infor Birst Admin User Guide.
  1. Verify that there is no data published in the space.
  2. Create a hierarchy and level for the degenerate dimension and set the level key.
  3. Edit the Source Properties for the source you would like to create the degenerate dimension in.


  4. Target and grain your source normally.
  5. Set the Snapshot and Transaction Policy to Incremental refresh. Optionally, you can specify the delete keys to allow Birst to identify duplicate entries and delete old records to replace them with the newly uploaded ones.
  6. Select the Source Primary Key. This key should be the same as the level key in the degenerate dimension hierarchy.
  7. See Publishing in Modeler.
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