Page 100 - DCAP606_BUSINESS_INTELLIGENCE

Unit 6: Business Intelligence Project

Notes
Identify Data Warehousing Data Source Subject Matter Experts
Consider the following questions when determining the sources and costs of data for the
Data Warehouse:
Where does the data come from?
What processes are used to obtain the data?

What does it cost to obtain the data?
What does it cost to store the data?
What does it cost to maintain the data?
Identify Dimension Data Sources for the Data Mart

Dimensions enable business intelligence users to put information in context. They focus
on questions of: who, when, where and what. Typical dimensions include:

Time period/calendar
Product
Customer
Household
Market Segment

Geographic Area
Master data is a complementary concept and may provide the best source of dimensional
data for the data warehouse. Master data is data shared between systems that describe
entities like: product, customer and household. Master data is managed using a Master
Data Management (MDM) system and stored in an MDM-Hub. Benefits of this approach
include:
It is less expensive to access data from a single source (MDM-Hub) than extracting
from multiple sources.

MDM data is rationalized.
MDM data is of high quality
If an MDM-Hub does not exist consider creating one. It will have many uses beyond
supporting the data warehouse and business intelligence.
If no MDM-Hub is available, you will need to examine source systems and determine
which system contains the data most suitable for dimensions. If the data is not stored in a
managed database, you may need to define the data locally, in a spreadsheet or desktop
database, and then provide to the data warehousing system.
Identify Fact Data Sources for the Data Mart
The Fact contains quantitative measurements while the Dimension contains classification
information. The data sources for Fact tend to be transactional software systems. For
example:

Contd....

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