Yet another post on duplicate categories. Is there a definitive solution?

[simontanguay]

We have a few dates dimensions and had to rebuild the categories after a change to our fiscal calendar. No matter what I try, I keep having old categories in the model. For instance, periods now belong to different trimester but the old periods still show up in their former trimester. There is no data under those old categories and they don't have sub-categories either (the periods are meant to have weeks under them). So since there are no data, we managed to deploy our change and the client can use the cube but it remains an annoyance as to ghost categories remains in the model.

The only thing that works to eliminate those old categories is to do a clean house but then I loose important categories at an higher level and important calculations.

I tried many times eliminating each date categories, starting with the nodes (fearing that if I delete only the head, the nodes remains in the system as orphan. Is it the case?), but it doesn't works either.

Any suggestions?

[bdbits]

Are you deleting the problematic old categories in the Transformer Categories window? Also, try right-clicking in the dimension map, pick Show Counts and see if the counts are as you expect.

I really avoid doing a clean house as you might inadvertently mangle the MUNs for existing categories and break reports, which it sounds like you experienced. Getting rid of old orphan categories can be an annoyance some times. I have found being sure the underlying data really is gone then deleting it from the Categories window takes care of it.