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feature request: inherit formatting for calculated members

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i'm not sure if there is a forum to submit feature requests. maybe this is the right place? anyway, here is my suggestion:

there should be an ability to make a calculated member to copy the format string from an existing member, calculated or physical.

rationale: with the introduction of utility dimensions/hierarchies, we need calculations that operate on different measures. let's have for example two measures, "number of customers" and "sell value". let's have in addition a time calculation hierarchy, which among others has a "growth" member. let's also have a product calculation hierarchy, with a member "market share". finally, a customer calculation hierarchy is also there, with the item "per customer" and "customer rank".

this set of calculations and measures allow for many interesting derivative values to be formulated, like "sell value per customer", or "sell value market share growth".

however, the formatting of these members are a real pain, and requires a lot of subcube operations. "number of customers per customer", though seems weird at first, can have meaning if the "per customer" calculation undoes some filtering (as it should). we expect this cell to have a percent formatting. but "sell value per customer" should inherit the formatting of "sell value". "market share growth" should be a percent, but "sell value growth" should be in currency. "growth" should inherit the formatting of whatever it operates on. "rank" should always override the formatting to "0".

the resulting subcubes have a super-L shape, and the number of cases can be huge. all these could be easily managed with an ability like this:

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[some member] as ..., FORMAT_STRING=[other member]

with [other member] being any other member in any dimension/hierarchy. if the other member also inherits its formatting, the server should follow the links to the end. cell level syntax (possibly in SCOPE) should also be extended the same way:

FORMAT_STRING(...) = [other member]

for example 

CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[time].[time evolution].[growth] as
  [time].[time evolution].[actual] - 
  ([time].[time evolution].[actual], [time].[calendar].CurrentMember.PrevMember),
  FORMAT_STRING=[time].[time evolution].[actual]

which would indicate that growth has the same formatting as "actual" would have. since "actual" is a physical member, and not a measure, it will inherit the formatting from the context, namely all other calculations and finally the current measure.

hope this makes sense.


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