A cross tab consists of the following three areas, as shown in Figure 9‑1:

The row and column areas contain the dimensions. The dimension values form the row and column headings of the cross tab. The detail area contains one or more measures to display aggregate data.

Figure 9‑1 shows the example report, which groups data by month, quarter, and year. Each number in the cross tab represents the sales total of a particular product for a particular month. Grand Total displays the total sales of all products for each month, the total sales for each quarter, and the total sales across months and quarters in 2004. Grand Total also displays the total sales for each product line by month, quarter, and for the whole year.