Transformer Cube issue with new customers

[aerick911]

I have an odd problem! 

This is with Cognos 10.1.1 fix pack 3

I have a cube that has sourced from several queries in a cognos report.

Query1:  Facts
Query2:  Customers

I seperate these two, because the customer query is fairly heavy and I'd see my build times skyrocket if I joined the two queries together.  The key between these two records is a field called keyCustomerSales.

When I create a cube, any brand new customers from the previous business day are getting dropped and then I see them showing up in an orphanage with only the key displayed rather than what I should be picking up in the Customer Query. (Customer Name). 

What's interesting, is then the next time the cube is run, these customers are getting picked up.  I've ruled out any issues with the data warehouse not having the customer info at cube build time.

Do I have a timing issue that I am missing? 

[bdbits]

I will assume the customers are a dimension. Transformer will by default not include dimensional categories if the categories has no associated facts. So if the first day the customer is created and they do not yet have any corresponding facts (e.g. a sale), they might not get included in the cube.

You can override this in Transformer - on the level properties on the General tab, change Inclusion to "Always include".

Could that explain the behavior you are seeing?

(I am not sure why you see the key value instead of the name, though.)

[Michael75]

In my (limited) experience it's normal for an orphaned category to take the source value (category code).

Could you tell us more about your Customer dimension?
- How many levels?
- What have you defined as source and category code for each level?
- Which of these values is shared with the Fact query?

[aerick911]

Hi all,

I am so sorry it took so long to reply back.  Here was the issue.

The entire dimension was only partially built each day, not the entire thing due to a missing level description in the query.    It would pick up the key the first time, and then ORPHAN IT because I was missing the facility it belonged to higher up in the hierarchy.

Then the description would be updated the second time the cube was regenerated because it could properly look up which facility the customer belonged to. 

Thank you all for your help!