dimension fact matrix

I was wondering if anybody knew of a good resource for dimension/fact matrices documents.

If you are referring to the dimensional matrix bus, it is desribed in the DW toolkit book as well as the Lifecycle toolkit book.


It is usually in the form of an Excel sheet with fact tables (aka subject areas) listed vertically down the sheet and dimensions listing horizontally. A blank (no relation) or a character (sometimes different characters indicating the nature of the relationship or a footnote reference) appear in the intersecting cells where a relation exists.

Yes that is exactly what I was referring to. I was just curious if there were any excel templates out there that were used for documenting the dimension bus matrix.

Facts on the left and dimensions across the top is the basic form.

Depending on the complexity you may create high level matrix (business area and generic dimensions) for an enterprise view and lower level matrixes showing fact tables and role based dimensions for specific subject areas. The lower level matrix may contain coded intersection cells to improve clarity, for example you may have a date dimension and use coding such as D, M, and P at the fact/dimension intersection to indicate the facts are at a daily, monthly or fiscal period level of date. You may also break dimension columns out by role, using multiple date dimension columns for shipping date, order date, and so on depending on the nature of the facts and subject area. What you wind up doing depends on what you plan to use the matrix for and its intended audience. As you move up the corporate food chain, the level of detail needed tends to diminish.