About logical data structures in Planning Server

The top-level structure for data organization in Planning Business Modeler is an application. An application is the container for your company’s business model definitions, predefined and user-defined dimensions, and other metadata such as views, permissions, and process scheduling information. Application configurations are managed from the Consola de administración de planeación.

Each application must contain one root model site that is created during application creation. All other model sites in the application exist under the root model site in a hierarchical structure. The root model site is created, edited, and managed in Planning Business Modeler and each model site can inherit data and structure from the root model site.

Model sites organize data in your Planning Business Modeler application and contain dimensions, models, and related security information, business process definitions, which are used to structure business data.

Models are the basic unit of data storage in Planning Business Modeler the application and define how data is organized. Models use model properties, dimensions, and business rules to organize data and to define calculations and business logic. Models are created, edited, and managed in Planning Business Modeler.

Models and dimensions exist within model sites. Models and dimensions can be shared between model sites. If a dimension is shared, all members and member sets that are contained in a model site are shared with any child model subsites.

A dimension is an organized set of members that describe business data, such a country or region in geography, or an account in a Chart of Accounts (COA). A dimension member is a single item in a dimension. Planning Business Modeler helps you manage dimensions by organizing dimension members into member sets. A member set is a selected hierarchy of members that is used to create models and members can belong to an unlimited number of member sets.

Predefined dimensions serve as templates that can be modified and enhanced. Some predefined dimensions such as Account, Currency, and Time, are included in Planning Business Modeler and additional user-defined dimensions can be created. Common user-defined dimensions are product or geography. Predefined dimensions may need to be modified to match your current data structure and naming conventions.

• Dimension members can be organized by using member views, or system-maintained groupings of members based on their properties. Member views are not used to build models; instead they provide an alternative way to create reports by using dimension member properties to analyze groups of related members. For example, after you create a member view, you can use it to calculate the sum of all dimension members with the same value for a given property.

Business rules are prescribed actions that perform operations on the multidimensional data in a model. For example, you can use rules to seed data in Complemento PerformancePoint para Excel forms and move balances from one period to another. Rules can also calculate forecasts, budgets, variances, and key performance indicators (KPIs); allocate resources; aggregate levels; and load data into models, or copy data between models.

The way a rule is processed depends on the rule set type, rule type, and rule implementation characteristics for the rule. Rule type and rule set type are closely related, because every rule must belong to a rule set. Generally, the choice of rule set type determines the options that are available for rule type.

The available implementation options for a rule depend on the rule type that was selected. Rules can be implemented through SQL, MDX query, MDX script, or specialized implementations that are specific to certain rule types.

This topic is included in the following downloadable book for easier reading and printing:

• Planning Server Planning and Architecture Guide for PerformancePoint Server 2007

See the full list of available books at Downloadable content for PerformancePoint Planning Server.