Avoid using a property's Visible attribute hierarchy as a level in a user-defined hierarchy

Best practice Recommendations

To improve usability, you should typically hide attribute hierarchies that are also used as levels in the user hierarchy. If the attribute members are visible in other ways, the user may be confused. To hide the attribute hierarchy, change its AttributeHierarchyVisible property to False.

When an attribute is also included in a user-defined hierarchy, it usually does not need to be displayed in its own single-level hierarchy. This repetition only complicates the end user and does not provide any additional benefits. You should consider renaming levels or attribute hierarchies in the user hierarchy.

A common scenario for providing two views for a property is in the time dimension. The ability to browse by [Month] and browse by [Month-quarter-year] is valuable. However, these two month properties are actually different properties. The first property contains only the month value, such as "January", and the second attribute contains months and years, such as "January 1998".

For more information

For more information about how to hide and disable an attribute hierarchy, see the "Effectively use Hierarchies" section in SQL Server Books Online, hide and disable attribute hierarchies, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Performance Guide.

Avoid using a property's Visible attribute hierarchy as a level in a user-defined hierarchy