Select the Calendar Year level and click the basic tab of the properties pane. Compare the values of the Member Key Column and the Member Name Column properties. Note that both contain the same expression “DatePart(‘yyyy’,”Time/Month”.”Month”). The Dimension wizard constructs expressions for the key and name columns in the time dimension.

Next select the Calendar Month Level and compare the values of the Member Key Columns and the Member Name Column properties. The expression for the member key is DatePart(‘m’,”TimeMonth”.”Month”), and the expression for the member name is Format(“TimeMonth”.”Month”,’mmmm’). The member key is the month number, and the name is the descriptive name of the month. The Dimension Wizard also sets the Order By property to key. Click on the Advanced tab and view this property. This setting sorts the names of the months in calendar order.

The member name expression can be modified to display the three character abbreviation for a month. To do this, change the formatting string portion of the member name column property from ‘mmmm’ to ‘mmm’.

Next select the Calendar Quarter Level and look at the expressions for the Member name column. The expression is Quarter + Format$(DatePart(‘q’, “TimeMonth”, “Month”)). The labels for quarters can also be abbreviated to qtr by changing the expression for the Member Name Column of the Calendar Quarter from “Quarter” to “qtr”.

Click Save to Save the changes.

The type property of a dimension and Level Type property of a level assume significance when dealing with the time dimension. Even with dimension it is not critical. The expression created by the Dimension wizard can be modified and new levels can be added with appropriate expressions for these levels.

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