Geography hierarchy

The Geography hierarchy contains attributes such as Country and Region, as well as Distribution Center, Call Center, and employee-specific attributes. It is easy to understand why Country and Region are in the Geography hierarchy, but what about Distribution Center, Call Center, and the employee-related attributes?

The data used in MicroStrategy Tutorial is based upon a fictitious company that sells electronics, movies, music, and books. The company does not have physical stores, but instead does its business from catalog and Web sales. Customers review the products in a printed or online catalog and call in their order over the phone. The order is then processed by an employee located at one of the call centers. The order is then fulfilled by a distribution center that holds the correct item and sends it through one of the shippers.

The Geography hierarchy contains the following attributes.

Attribute	Description	Example
Call Center	Where product phone-in orders are taken. Each call center is located in a different city.	Atlanta, Boston, Charleston.
Country	Countries where the company does or hopes to do business in the future. Also refers to countries where employees work.	USA, Spain, France.
Distribution Center	The location where product orders are sent out to customers. Currently, each is located in the same city as the call center it services.	Miami, New Orleans, Fargo.
Employee	The lowest level in the Geography hierarchy, representing the individual responsible for each order placed.	Jennifer Lee, Laura Kelly.
Employee Age	The age of each employee.	29, 36, 52.
Employee Birth Date	The date each employee was born.	5/6/66, 1/1/77.
Employee Experience	The number of years an employee has worked for the organization.	3, 5, 6.
Employee FTE Flag	Indicates whether the employee's status is full-time.	Yes, No.
Hire Date	The date on which a particular employee was hired.	2/16/97, 3/15/99.
Manager	Person responsible for a specific call center.	Peter Rose, Alice Cooper.
MicroStrategy User	Login ID of the MicroStrategy user. This attribute is used for implementing data security using system prompts.	Administrator, Business User, User.
Region	Each country is split into regions.	Central, Northeast, Southwest.
Salary	The amount of money an employee makes per year.	24,000, 35,000.

The attributes listed in the table above are some of the most commonly used attributes that are included in the logical definition of the Geography hierarchy. Refer to the following image for a complete understanding of the logical relationships of all attributes for the Geography hierarchy.