Altering truth in DW

Hi,

We have millions of customers in our customer dimension in the DW. Business Management wants us to change country for one customer so that exec reports reflect this customer roll up to different country than the original signup country. Source systems can't make this change due to some legalities. We can change it in the DW in way that it is auditable and reversible (if needed). But that way, we will be changing the truth. Alternatively, we can introduce a new attribute in DW as 'reporting country' in addition to keeping 'signup country'. Any thoughts and experiences on this situation in the DW... how did you handle it and why you chose one solution over the other? What is best approach from best practices perpective?

Thanks in advance
DWModeler

Ugh! Are trade embargos involved???

The 'reporting country' attribute seems like the best option.

No, no trade embargo involved... Just for reporting purposes.

If we can't do 'reporting country' due to time and effort involved in rebuilding aggs as opposed to the other option of altering the truth by changing the country in DW and injecting impacted transaction records into incremental load, would you consider doing this in the DW?

If it's just one customer, you could just change the value and document it. I assume this is a customer attribute.

If this is going to become an ongoing issue, then a more systematic approach is necessary.

I'm not sure what you mean when you discuss the transactions... unless country is its own dimension, rather than a customer attribute. If that is the case, the change is a bit more problematic. If it is only is own dimension in aggregations, then you would need to rebuild the aggregates.