Track · 2:50 · Liner note
Dimension Table Dreams
In dimensional modeling, a dimension table holds descriptive attributes such as customer, product or date that give context to the numbers stored in fact tables.
Facts tell you how much; dimensions tell you of what, for whom, and when. Dimension Table Dreams is the quiet design phase in which you decide what a customer actually is, which attributes deserve a column and what the grain will be.
Get those answers right and every later query becomes a short sentence. Get them wrong and each report invents its own definitions. This one belongs at the whiteboard stage, where naming things carefully is the most valuable work in the project.