Preparing for an Allocation

To prepare for allocating data, you decide on the data to allocate, the data on which to base the allocation, and the variable cells to which you want to assign the allocated data. You determine or create objects that contain or produce the data.

The target must be a variable that is dimensioned by one or more hierarchical dimensions. The source is a variable or a formula and the basis is a formula, a relation, or a variable. The source, basis, and target can all be the same variable.

You also decide whether to use a target log object to keep a copy of the allocation and whether to specify a file to log errors. For a target log, you use a variable and for the error log you specify a fileunit.

You create an aggregation map to use for the allocation. The contents of the aggregation map specify the dimensions and the values of the dimension hierarchies to use in the allocation, the method of operation, and other aspects of the allocation.

You specify the values of the dimension hierarchies to use in the allocation with a relation object. If you do not already have a relation that specifies the child-parent relations from the hierarchy that you want to use in the allocation, then you create a self-relation, which is a relation on the dimension dimensioned by the same dimension. The child-parent relationships that you assign to the relation specify the path of the allocation.