Dimension vs Attribute

Hi


Can you please let me know when should we go for a separate dimension?

For example, for our Sales reporting purpose, if we need to show only Customer Name along with other sales attribute so is it required to create a separate Customer dimension for this attribute or It can be kept in sales dimension as an attribute?


Thanks in Advance!!

Chances are, you'll create aggregates for Sales that don't include individual customers, which suggests that seperate dimensions would be in order.

Lets say you have 1 million customers and 4 sales regions. And lets say over the course of a year, the 1 million customers did a total of 100 million transactions (your fact table). Lets say you want to roll up those transactions by the 4 sales regions. If Sales Region is in your Customer Dimension, your query would include a join between 1 table with 100 million rows and a table with 1 million rows, and then aggregate the data to the 4 sales regions.

But if the 4 sales regions were in their own dimension, then your query would be 1 table with 100 million rows to a table with 4 rows, which would be a considerable performance improvement.

Sales dimension sounds fishy to me. It sounds like a 1-1 to a sales fact. Sales are things you count, not filter by.

Thanks Jeff !!!!
This answers to my question.