Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide- P14:Essbase is a multidimensional database management system. The name Essbase stands for Extended Spread Sheet dataBASE. Using the custom add-in provides the end-user with near seamless compatibility in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. | Essbase Data and Design Considerations Report scripts Essbase report scripts contain Essbase proprietary and cryptic instructions and commands. These are typically used in some sort of automated process to generate actual output reports which are extracted from the cube. Alternately a report script can be used to extract data into a flat file to export to a downstream system. These report scripts can be run manually from the EAS or from an Essbase command script MaxL script in later versions or even from an API call inside a VB or COM application. Essbase report scripts are saved with the .rep file extension and they too are ASCII text files. Cursory knowledge is needed for creating or editing Essbase report scripts as they are actually coded in a symbolic Essbase pseudo-language. Essbase report scripts are discussed in detail in Chapter 6. Database load rules files Raw data from an ASCII text file Microsoft Excel or from an RDBMS database will be loaded into your Essbase cube using Essbase rules file objects. Essbase rules files can be used in two ways To dynamically build dimensions in the outline and add members so you won t need to do it manually . To load data where you can define how the data is loaded determine what data to skip or load perform concatenations of separate columns into one and even add business rules. As with the Essbase report script objects the rules file can be invoked from the EAS from an Essbase command script MaxL script in later versions or even from an API call inside a VB or COM application. The rules file objects are saved with the . rul extension and must be created viewed and edited through EAS. In Chapter 3 we will modify the Esscar database outline using the dimension build rules file functionality. In Chapter 4 we will discuss the data load rule file further. Allowing duplicate member names In Essbase and earlier versions each outline member had a unique name and duplicate member names were not allowed. But in System 9 .
