Patent ID: 8914418

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving user input identifying a dimension tree of a plurality of dimension trees associated with a master database; presenting, in a user interface, the dimension tree to the user, the dimension tree including a core dimension indicating a purpose of the dimension tree, the user interface displaying a plurality of non-core dimensions characterizing the core dimension; receiving, via the user interface, user input identifying one of the plurality of non-core dimensions of the dimension tree, and presenting, via the user interface, a plurality of options to be performed with respect to the identified non-core dimension of the dimension tree; receiving a user selection of a link option from the plurality of options, the link request option to link the dimension tree to other dimensions trees of the plurality of dimension trees via the identified non-core dimension of the dimension tree; in response to the user selection of the link option, displaying, in the user interface, a list of available dimensions from the other dimension trees, the available dimensions comprising non-core dimensions from the other dimension trees; and receiving, via the user interface, a user selection of non-core dimensions from the list of available dimensions, wherein the master database does not define a relationship between the identified non-core dimension from the dimension tree and any of the selected non-core dimensions from the other dimension trees; creating, by a processing device, a list of linked non-core dimensions from the plurality of dimension trees using the identified non-core dimension from the dimension tree and the selected non-core dimensions from the other dimension trees, the list associating the linked non-core dimensions from the plurality of dimension trees with each other to combine the plurality of dimension trees into a forest of dimension trees; storing data identifying the linked non-core dimensions in a reporting database; and presenting, in the user interface, the forest of dimension trees based on associations between the linked non-core dimensions.