Browsing SSAS (2005) Dimensions from Excel

Hi all,

I am having difficulty understanding why my dimension names aren't showing up in a pivot table field list when I browse SSAS 2005 cubes from Excel 2003 (using the 90 PTS OLAP DLL).

Has anybody else experienced this problem where the dimension names aren't being made visible? Unfortunately all I see are my attribute names and these, by themselves, are extremely ambiguous.

Just wondering if there are any quick and easy fixes or work-arounds that anybody could recommend.

Thanks in advance,
DB
Since the hierarchies within dimensions (including the visible default attribute hierarchies) are probably what you're seeing in Excel, one work-around would be to create user-defined hierarchies with more meaningful names within the dimensions, even if they merely mimic an attribute hierarchy with an ambiguous name. The corresponding attribute hierarchies could then be hidden, to avoid confusion.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175631(en-US,SQL.90).aspx
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Configuring Multilevel Hierarchies

The Cube Wizard and the Dimension Wizard in Business Intelligence Development Studio in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS) create multilevel hierarchies that are based on natural (one-to-many) relationships between columns in tables of a database. You can also create and edit hierarchies by using the Dimension Structure tab of Dimension Designer.

The Hierarchies and Levels pane of the Dimension Structure tab shows the hierarchies in the dimension. The title bar for a hierarchy shows the name of the hierarchy, which you can change by setting the Name property of the hierarchy. The levels of a hierarchy are marked by dots—the root level is marked by a single dot, and each level below the root is marked with an additional dot.

Click a hierarchy to display its properties in the Properties window. Click a level in the hierarchy to display its properties.

Creating Multilevel Hierarchies

Create multilevel hierarchies by dragging attributes from the Attributes pane of the Dimension Structure tab to a blank area on the Hierarchies and Levels pane. You can also drag columns from the Data Source View pane to the Hierarchies and Levels pane. Dragging a column creates the corresponding attribute, if the attribute does not already exist. To add an attribute or a column as a level in an existing hierarchy, drag the attribute or column to the existing hierarchy. As you drag an attribute or a column over a hierarchy, a bar indicates where the new level will be created when you drop the attribute or the column on the hierarchy.
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http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174939(en-US,SQL.90).aspx
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Showing or Hiding an Attribute Hierarchy

If you want to add an attribute as a level to multilevel hierarchies, but you do not want users to see the attribute hierarchy in client applications, set AttributeHierarchyEnabled to True and set AttributeHierarchyVisible to False. These settings prevent users from browsing an attribute hierarchy without disabling it. The AttributeHierarchyVisible setting is ignored if AttributeHierarchyEnabled is set to False.
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|||Your work-around makes sense. But it is a great deal of effort to do this for all of our dimension attributes in all of our dimensions.

I am still somewhat amazed that Excel 2003 isn't automatically displaying dimension names. Call me crazy but it seems to me that the name of the dimension is significant enough to display in some fashion.

Thanks,
db