A data unit is used to load, clear, calculate, store, and lock data in the multi-dimensional engine. With workflow channels, OneStream provides the following data units.
Level 1: Cube Data Unit
This is the largest unit of work and is commonly referred to as the entity, scenario and time data unit. This aligns with financial analytic system tasks to clear, load, calculate, and lock entity, scenario and time combinations.
Members of the cube data unit are:
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Cube
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Entity
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Parent
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Consolidation
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Scenario
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Time
Cube data unit analytic work items include:
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Clear data
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Load data
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Copy data
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Calculate
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Translate
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Consolidate
Level 2: Workflow Data Unit
The workflow data unit builds on the cube data unit by including the account dimension. This decreases the unit of work by increasing the data unit's granularity. This indicates a workflow data unit is a sub-set of the cube data unit, allowing fine-grained control over analytic work items such as clearing, loading, and locking data cells.
The workflow data unit is the default level used by the workflow engine to control, load, clear, and lock data. Workflow level data loads from the staging data mart to the cube, and is cleared and locked at a granularity level that includes the account dimension by default.
For example, if two import workflow profiles are not siblings of the same input parent, but load to the same entity, scenario and time dimensions, the data loads and clears at the account level. However, if these two workflow profiles load the same accounts, the last workflow profile to load is used. If these workflow profiles load to different accounts, then data loads for both workflow profiles.
Members of the workflow data unit are:
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Cube
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Entity
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Parent
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Time
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Consolidation
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Scenario
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Account
Workflow data unit analytic work items are:
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Clear data
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Load data
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Lock data
Level 3: Workflow Channel Data Unit
The workflow channel data unit builds on workflow the data unit by including a single user-defined dimension. The user-defined dimension decreases the unit of work by increasing the data unit's granularity. This means a workflow channel data unit is a subset of the workflow data unit, allowing fine-grained control over analytic work items such as clearing, loading, and locking data cells.
The user-defined dimension that extends the data unit is specified at the application level from the Application Properties screen. You can only use one user-defined dimension per application, so carefully consider which user-defined to select in relation to the application's dimension dimension.
For example, cost center and version user-defined dimensions are commonly used in a workflow channel data unit. These user-defined dimension are frequently included in a workflow channel data unit because they represent data slices that align with data collection and locking requirements of the Budget and Forecast business processes.
Workflow Channel Unit Budget Example
A typical cost center budget collection process has many users submitting data to a single cube data unit. In addition, all users are submitting data for a cost center to the same workflow data unit. This can inevitably cause data contention within the workflow data unit. Therefore, assigning the user-defined dimension containing cost centers as the user-defined dimension type for Workflow Channels makes each entity/cost center act as a granular and autonomous cell collection in a legal entity. This allows individual cost centers to load, clear, and lock data with no impact to other cost centers.
Workflow channel data unit members are:
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Cube
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Entity
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Parent
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Time
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Consolidation
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Scenario
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Account
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User Defined (x)
Workflow channel data unit analytic work items are:
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Clear data
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Load data
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Lock data
