customer and accounts

Hi

I have two dimensions, Customer and account if an account can only have one customer is it better to put the customer key in the account dimension or have a customer/account fact table

Regards

Tim

Since these are two different things (entities), I would separate them. The only caveat is if "account" is just a synonym for "customer".

I would keep them seperate.

Let's say you to create a Customer level aggregate. If you combine Customer and Account in one dimension, you would have to create a mini-dimension for customer and a view of the customer key and other relevant data from the account table. If the dimension table is big, creating a Customer view from the account dimension can be slow.

If an account belongs to only one customer, putting the customer key in account dimension is enough.

But be careful if your customer key is a surrogate key. If any change occurs in customer record, you create a new customer sk and you have to reflect this change to the account dimension table. You have to insert a new record, because of the SK change.