I have a cube in SQL Server Analysis services 2008 that contains a time dimension comprised of years and quarters. There is a separate YearQuarterID column as well.
The Quarter attribute (type Quarters) consists of integer values 1 - 4 for each year, as you might expect. Since this is not the key attribute for the dimension, the non-uniqueness shouldn't be a problem, and in fact the cube builds cleanly.
Inspecting the properties for this attribute in BIDS 2008, I see that it does have a KeyColumns property. (Not sure what this means for a non-key attribute.) It says "DimYearQuarter.Quarter (Integer)".
Now, I'm trying to retrofit this cube to SSAS 2005. I have a similar dimension, created from a similar relational database table with similar values. As far as I can tell, the properties for the attribute are identical in BIDS 2005, nevertheless, when I try to process the cube, I get the error:
Errors in the OLAP storage engine: The attribute key is a duplicate: Table: dbo_DimYearQuarter, Column: Quarter, Value: 1.
I did notice that the Properties window in VS2005 doesn't allow the KeyColumns property to be expanded. So I can't drill down to compare details of the property between versions.
If the attribute is not a key for the dimension, why are duplicates a problem in 2005?