Can we visualize zigzag?

Yes, you can

What are the index based rules and why they are used by cube designer?

In the previous blog, we discussed how to create a dimension build rules file and how it creates a dimension with few clicks from raw data.

In this blog, we will cover the basics of index based rules and the difference between them.

• Good news is they are the similar except the way column operations(join, create columns, ...) are handled. Another difference is index based rules are supported for dimension build only and not for data load. 

• Another good news is, if your rules are in regular format, there is no need to convert them to index based. If you are writing new rules, index based rules are easy to develop and understand.

(Re)Introducing load rules in OAC

Rules define operations that Essbase performs on data values or on dimensions and members when it processes a data source. Use rules to map data values to an Essbase database or to map dimensions and members to an Essbase outline.

 In other words, rules file is the small out of the box ETL utility to extract, transform and load the data into Essbase. You can either build/edit dimension or load data into Essbase using these rules.

In this blog, we will convert the flat data into Essbase dimension called "Year". There is no need to create this empty dimension in the outline. Rules will take care of creating it too.