Creating Validation Rules with Existing Attributes

Create a validation rule using the existing attributes of a reference dimension.

Prerequisites

  • Before you start creating a validation rule for your planning model, switch on Validation Rule in the model preferences. The Rules tab is added to the model maintenance page. For more information, see Model Preferences.

  • You need to save changes to the master data before you can enter the Rules tab to start maintaining validation rules.

  • Make sure you have the appropriate permission to configure validation rules. Users with the Planning Professional license are granted the Validation Rule permission. Ask your administrator to add this permission to your role. For more information, see Permissions.

Context

Without using a validation rule to combine two dimensions, you can ensure strict member combinations by maintaining members of one dimension as the other one’s attributes. With validation rules, you can match the existing attributes you maintained for that reference dimension to the matched dimension and create validation rules based on that.

Example
Let's take cost center and profit center as example:
You want to define an allowed validation rule for the Cost Center dimension and the Profit Center dimension in a model as shown below.
Cost Center Profit Center
CC1 PC1, PC2
CC2 PC3

Without a validation rule, the valid Profit Center members PC1 and PC2 are maintained as Profit Center attributes of the corresponding Cost Center dimension member CC1, and PC3 is maintained as attribute of CC2. The values of these Profit Center attributes are identical with the members of the Profit Center dimension.

Using the validation rule feature, you can match the Profit Center attributes PC1, PC2 and PC3 to the Profit Center dimension members PC1, PC2 and PC3 to directly create a validation rule between the Cost Center dimension and the corresponding valid Profit Center dimension members. In this example, the dimension Cost Center where the attributes are maintained is the reference dimension and the dimension Profit Center you want to map the reference dimension to is the matched dimension.

Note
Please note the following:

  • You can create three rules for one model.

  • You can define three dimensions in one rule.

  • You can use the same dimension in up to 10 different rules.

  • You can't choose time or version dimensions in a validation rule.

Procedure

  1. On the model maintenance page, go to the Rules tab.
  2. In the Validation Rules panel on the right, choose Create New Rule and select Create With Existing Attributes.
  3. Enter a name and description for the rule.
  4. In the grid, add a Reference Dimension for which you’ve maintained a corresponding attribute.
    Note

    You can't use system attributes, only custom attributes are supported.

  5. Under Matched Dimension, click the button.
  6. In the Match Reference Dimension Attribute to a Dimension dialog box, choose the attribute of the reference dimension and match it to the corresponding dimension.
    Note

    All values of the attribute should be available as dimension members in the matched dimension. Otherwise, you will receive an error or warning message asking you to check and maintain the dimension's master data.

    The reference dimension is matched to the corresponding dimension via its attribute. When there are multiple matched dimension members, the members will be displayed using a comma (,) as the separator between them. And there's no extra space between the separator and the member.

    Example

  7. In the Validation Rules panel on the right, click Save.

Next Steps

In a story based on this model, planners can only enter data for the valid member combinations for the dimensions you defined in the validation rule. For more details, see About Validation Rule Checks.