Understanding Dimensions

Dimensions in Blox are a powerful way to organize and break down parts of your model into different groups or sets of items. In a business context, dimensions often represent the structural aspects or management divisions within the business. Here are a few examples:

• The Revenue generated by the business can be split across different Products
• The number of customers a business has can be split across different Regions
• The employee costs of a business can be split across different Departments
• Individual expenses can be split into Expense lines

In Blox, the terms in Bold are referred to as Dimensions, each containing various Dimension Items.

💡Tip: Dimensions are specific to an individual model, but can be applied to multiple Blocks within a model. This helps to keep the structure of the model consistent wherever it is relevant!

By adding dimensions to a block, Blox automatically applies calculation logic for the entire block to all individual items. This significantly impacts what you can achieve within a block:

• Inputting assumptions - You can add individual assumptions for each dimension item. This is crucial for making detailed assumptions, such as inputting sales numbers for individual products.

• Using item properties as indicator values - Utilise the values of properties within a dimension as inputs to the model, simplifying data management.

• Viewing detailed outputs - When reviewing plan outputs, get a comprehensive breakdown of numbers by each individual component rather than at a higher aggregated level.

Dimensions are the key to the flexibility of Blox, offering several advantages:

• One formula works for everything - Write a single formula that automatically applies across all items in the dimension, eliminating the need for copying and pasting numerous rows of formulas.
• Easy to expand the model - No need for model adjustments when adding items and expanding dimensions. The model adapts automatically for consistency.
• Automated aggregation and roll ups - connected dimensions enable the creation of different groupings and roll-ups, allowing interactive data analysis at various levels without duplicating calculations.