In Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services, ragged hierarchies are supported in regular and parent-child dimensions. A ragged hierarchy is unbalanced if the hierarchy is in a parent-child dimension.
In a ragged hierarchy, the logical parent member of at least one member is not in the level immediately above the member. This can cause branches of the hierarchy to descend to different levels.
For example, in a Geography dimension defined with the levels Continent, Country, and City, in that order, the member Europe appears in the top level of the hierarchy, the member France appears in the middle level, and the member Paris appears in the bottom level. France is more specific than Europe, and Paris is more specific than France. To this regular hierarchy, the following changes are made:
Because of the alterations, the hierarchy of the dimension is now ragged. The parent of the city Geneva is the country Switzerland, which is not in the level immediately above Geneva.
To make a hierarchy ragged, various methods can be selected in the Hide Member If property of a level in the properties pane of Dimension Editor (if the dimension is shared) or Cube Editor (if the dimension is private).
Alternatively, if the ragged dimension is a parent-child dimension, the Skipped Levels Column property of the level is used to support the ragged structure. If you use this property, ensure that the dimension table contains a column that stores the number of intervening levels between each member and its parent.
Both properties can cause the logically missing members to be hidden from end users as they browse cubes. Neither property is supported in virtual dimensions.
Ragged hierarchies can appear ragged to end users only if certain criteria are met. That is, only if the criteria are met can members whose logical parents are not in the level immediately above them nevertheless appear immediately beneath their logical parents. These criteria are: