Dimension with different sources (multiple business keys) ?

Very interesting Topic,
since i find myself in a similar situation. Beside having different source systems (backoffice, accounting, finance) also our backoffice software contains multiple records (employee, customer, etc.) for each branch office. Lack of mandatory fields, input validation and no change tracking by the outdated backoffice solution make all potential natural keys almost useless. To add some fun every time a "prospective customer" becomes an "active customer" the backoffice system itself creates a new duplicate record with new id and no relation to the prospective... as you may guess my #1 for christmas would be a substitute backoffice solution.

however thanks for having shared your experience, hopefully it'll finally save my day(s) & good luck to all fellows struggling their way out

Hi at710,

You paint a very familiar picture.  I've been working in IT for over 25 years now and if anything the design/quality of operational systems is declining, even as their scope & volume increases. 

In my youth I too would have railed at these issues - with little/no impact.  Now I am happy or even gratified to see data design/quality issues in operational systems - I now seem them as a "career opportunity" or "business opportunity". 

Who else can glean any value from such data but a DW/BI professional, following the Kimball Method?

Mike