Cubes are the central building blocks of TM1. They are multi-dimensional arrays of data that allow users to analyze and explore data from different perspectives. For example, a company might wish to summarize financial data by product, by time-period and by city to compare actual and budget expenses.

Dimensions are the categories or attributes by which data is organized within a cube. Dimensions provide context and meaning to the data and allow users to slice and dice data along different axes. Typical dimensions a cube might contain are time, versions, regions, products, departments and metrics.

Hierarchies are the logical organization of dimension members into a parent-child relationship. They provide a structure or organization to a dimension, allowing users to navigate and analyze KPIs at different levels of granularity or detail. For example, a time dimension hierarchy might include levels such as year, quarter, month and day.

Rules are statements or instructions that govern the behavior of the database. Rules define how the database processes and calculates data, and how it responds to user queries and requests. Rules can be used to calculate purchase costs, exchange rates, inventory levels, inventory depletion and final production costs.