Suppose your organization wants to analyze customer buying trends by product line and region so that you can develop more effective marketing strategies. In this scenario, the subject area for your data model is sales.
After many interviews and thorough analysis of your sales business process, suppose your organization collects the following information:
Previously, sales districts were divided by city. Now the customer base corresponds to two regions: Region 1 for California and Region 2 for all other states.
To develop a working data model, you can assume that the relational database of sales information has the following properties:
The region information has not yet been added to the database.
An important characteristic of the dimensional model is that it uses business labels familiar to end users rather than internal tables or column names. After the business process is completed, you should have all the information you need to create the measures, dimensions, and relationships for the dimensional data model. This dimensional data model is used to implement the sales_demo database that Implementing a Dimensional Database (XPS) describes.
The stores_demo demonstration database is the primary data source for the dimensional data model that this chapter develops. For detailed information about the data sources that are used to populate the tables of the sales_demo database, see Mapping Data from Data Sources to the Database.
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