Microsoft Metadata Management

What is the best way to store and make available to end users business metadata related to conformed dimension attribute definitions within Microsoft products (tables, view, and or OLAP/Analysis Services)?

Hi bdhiggins

Ref my post at the end of this topic for some ideas:
http://forum.kimballgroup.com/t1289-metadata-management

Good luck!
Mike

Hi,
It's sad that the answer is do it yourself. The tools we offer in the book are very simple, and focus on business metadata because it doesn't live anywhere else in the Microsoft environment, and it's the most important documentation to help the users figure out what's in the DW/BI system.

There are a few tools out there that do some of this. BI Documenter from Pragmatic Works is one some of our students have mentioned in class.

Ultimately, I think Microsoft should step up to this problem and give us a true semantic layer that can hold business metadata and map back to the cube or a dimensional model in the relational database. I'm not holding my breath.

Let us know what you figure out.
--Warren