KB214516: Circular dependency found among attribute, drill map, and template object when trying to remove objects in MicroStrategy 9.x.

SUMMARY

This technical note outlines behavior seen when trying to remove attribute/drill map/template objects with a circular dependency not allowing for any of the objects to be deleted in Strategy 9.x.
 

SYMPTOM

Users may notice that when trying to remove attributes, drill maps, and template objects that reference similar objects as part of its definition, they cannot delete those objects and will be returned the standard error for dependencies:

Cannot delete 'X' because other objects depend on it. Do you want to search the dependent objects?

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

The following are steps to reproduce the behavior in Tutorial:

1. Create a template with Month and Day attributes.
2. Create a drill map with Origin of Month that points to the template created from Step 1.
3. Search for dependents on the drill map to find the Month and Day attributes.
4. Search for dependents on the Month attribute to find the template.
5. Search for dependents on the template to find the drill map.

A circular dependency is thus generated.
 

CAUSE

The behavior experienced above is expected for the following reasons:

• The template contains Month and Day as components, so the template depends on the attributes.
• The drill map references the template as a component, so the drill map depends on the template.
• Upon creating a drill map for an attribute, the drill map becomes part of the object's definition as there can be different drill maps for different attributes exposed in a report or document. Thus, the attribute depends on the drill map.

ACTION

Modify the definition of either the drill map or the template to remove the references to one or more of the objects inside the circular dependency to break the circular dependency. Ways to accomplish this could be to remove the template/attribute from the drill map or remove the attribute from the template.
 

WORKAROUND

An enhancement has been logged to resolve these kinds of dependencies upon deleting the object.
The Strategy internal reference number for the issue described in this technical note is 942551