Junk Dimension Design

Question

Junk Dimension Design

kewlguy13

SSC Enthusiast

Points: 171
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July 15, 2016 at 6:06 am

#311718

Hello Eveyone,
I am struck with Junk dimension.
My target table structure is as below.
Junk_Dim
----------
JunkID -- PK
JunkTypeID -- PK
JunkCode
JunkName
JunkTypeName
Below values need to be propagated to the Junk Dimesnion.
SubscriptionStatusSubscriptionStatus
4Contract End
3Contract Cancelled
1Contract Made
2Contract Start
CustomerStatusCustomerStatus
1Customer Start
2Customer End
PaymentCodePaymentDesc
1Settled Late
2Settled On Time
3Invoiced
4Past Due
5Not Invoiced
-1N/A
DocumentTypeDocument
0Blank
1Payment
2Invoice
3Credit Memo
4Finance Charge Memo
5Reminder
6Refund
CaseTypeCaseType
0Unknown
1Car
2Alarm
3Home
4Security
TransportedTocategoryIdTransportedTo
0N/A
1Non agreement garage
2Place of work or business
3Auto Salvage / Car Junk Yard
4Home address
5(non agreement garage)
6Police
7Agreement garage directly
8Agreement garage via Comp
9Goverment (Trafikketaten)
I have gone through the forums but unable to come up with a solution that would be best way to fill the above Junk dimension structure with the values mentioned.
Any help is really appreciated.

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Phil Parkin SSC Guru Points: 246979 More actions · Answer 1

kewlguy13 (7/15/2016)
Hello Eveyone,
I am struck with Junk dimension.
My target table structure is as below.
Junk_Dim
----------
JunkID -- PK
JunkTypeID -- PK
JunkCode
JunkName
JunkTypeName
Below values need to be propagated to the Junk Dimesnion.
SubscriptionStatusSubscriptionStatus
4Contract End
3Contract Cancelled
1Contract Made
2Contract Start
CustomerStatusCustomerStatus
1Customer Start
2Customer End
PaymentCodePaymentDesc
1Settled Late
2Settled On Time
3Invoiced
4Past Due
5Not Invoiced
-1N/A
DocumentTypeDocument
0Blank
1Payment
2Invoice
3Credit Memo
4Finance Charge Memo
5Reminder
6Refund
CaseTypeCaseType
0Unknown
1Car
2Alarm
3Home
4Security
TransportedTocategoryIdTransportedTo
0N/A
1Non agreement garage
2Place of work or business
3Auto Salvage / Car Junk Yard
4Home address
5(non agreement garage)
6Police
7Agreement garage directly
8Agreement garage via Comp
9Goverment (Trafikketaten)
I have gone through the forums but unable to come up with a solution that would be best way to fill the above Junk dimension structure with the values mentioned.
Any help is really appreciated.

...with the values mentioned.

I see no values mentioned.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Martin Rees

You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.
Stan Laurel

kewlguy13 SSC Enthusiast Points: 171 More actions · Answer 2

These are the possible values:

SubscriptionStatusSubscriptionStatus

4Contract End

3Contract Cancelled

1Contract Made

2Contract Start

CustomerStatusCustomerStatus

1Customer Start

2Customer End

PaymentCodePaymentDesc

1Settled Late

2Settled On Time

3Invoiced

4Past Due

5Not Invoiced

-1N/A

DocumentTypeDocument

0Blank

1Payment

2Invoice

3Credit Memo

4Finance Charge Memo

5Reminder

6Refund

CaseTypeCaseType

0Unknown

1Car

2Alarm

3Home

4Security

TransportedTocategoryIdTransportedTo

0N/A

1Non agreement garage

2Place of work or business

3Auto Salvage / Car Junk Yard

4Home address

5(non agreement garage)

6Police

7Agreement garage directly

8Agreement garage via Comp

9Goverment (Trafikketaten).

I tried something like this:

Select 100001 Junk, 1 JunkTypeID , 'Contract Made' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100002 Junk, 2 JunkTypeID , 'Contract Start' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100003 Junk, 3 JunkTypeID , 'Contract Cancelled' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100004 Junk, 4 JunkTypeID , 'Contract End' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100005 Junk, 1 JunkTypeID , 'Customer Start' JunkCode, 'CustomerStatus' JunkName, 'CustomerStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100006 Junk, 2 JunkTypeID , 'Customer End' JunkCode, 'CustomerStatus' JunkName, 'CustomerStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100007 Junk, 1 JunkTypeID , 'Blank' JunkCode, 'DocumentType' JunkName, 'DocumentType' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100008 Junk, 2 JunkTypeID , 'Payment' JunkCode, 'DocumentType' JunkName, 'DocumentType' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100009 Junk, 3 JunkTypeID , 'Invoice' JunkCode, 'DocumentType' JunkName, 'DocumentType' JunkTypeName

Any advice is this a good idea?

Umer Akram SSC-Insane Points: 22209 More actions · Answer 3

What if you have a table which have multiple combinations of these lookup?

Something like this :

Invoice # : ABC1230092M1

PaymentCode : PaymentCode

DocumentType : Credit Memo

Transported: Home address

If this is happening then you will be ending up multiple join of you Junk_Dimension in the fact, which defeats the purpose of a junk_dimension

You need to know how many kind of possible combination you could have in your data.

drew.allen SSC Guru Points: 76996 More actions · Answer 4

Your design is for an EAV table, not a junk dimension. A junk dimension is derived from the Cartesian product of your attributes so it would look more like

JunkID

SubscriptionStatus

CustomerStatus

PaymentDesc

Document

CaseType

TransportedTo

Obviously, you don't need to include all possible values from your Cartesian product. For instance CustomerEnd probably won't need to be paired with every value of TransportTo.

Drew

J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA

kewlguy13 SSC Enthusiast Points: 171 More actions · Answer 5

Thanks Guys for the quick response!

Looking at the target table structure, I could see that Cross Join doesn't fit. That's where I was confused.

I will try with the EAV approach and see how it is used in Fact table.

For now I don't see any requirement for different combinations.

For EAV:

Is the below logic a good idea? Any comments?

Select 100001 Junk, 1 JunkTypeID , 'Contract Made' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100002 Junk, 2 JunkTypeID , 'Contract Start' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100003 Junk, 3 JunkTypeID , 'Contract Cancelled' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100004 Junk, 4 JunkTypeID , 'Contract End' JunkCode, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkName, 'SubscriptionStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100005 Junk, 1 JunkTypeID , 'Customer Start' JunkCode, 'CustomerStatus' JunkName, 'CustomerStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100006 Junk, 2 JunkTypeID , 'Customer End' JunkCode, 'CustomerStatus' JunkName, 'CustomerStatus' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100007 Junk, 1 JunkTypeID , 'Blank' JunkCode, 'DocumentType' JunkName, 'DocumentType' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100008 Junk, 2 JunkTypeID , 'Payment' JunkCode, 'DocumentType' JunkName, 'DocumentType' JunkTypeName

Union all

Select 100009 Junk, 3 JunkTypeID , 'Invoice' JunkCode, 'DocumentType' JunkName, 'DocumentType' JunkTypeName

drew.allen SSC Guru Points: 76996 More actions · Answer 6

kewlguy13 (7/15/2016)
Thanks Guys for the quick response!
Looking at the target table structure, I could see that Cross Join doesn't fit. That's where I was confused.
I will try with the EAV approach and see how it is used in Fact table.
For now I don't see any requirement for different combinations.
For EAV:
Is the below logic a good idea? Any comments?

An EAV table suffers all the same problems as having separate dimensions with none of the benefits. You still need to store a separate ID for each attribute in the fact table. You still need multiple joins to get the attribute values. You have trouble creating indexes on multiple attributes.

Drew

J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA

kewlguy13 SSC Enthusiast Points: 171 More actions · Answer 7

Thanks Drew for the comments!

If I had to design the Junk dimension with these values, what do you suggest.

What would be Junk Dimension structure?

Logic: I was thinking about CROSS JOIN.

Any ideas?

Below is the complete list of values:

SubscriptionStatusSubscriptionStatus

4Contract End

3Contract Cancelled

1Contract Made

2Contract Start

CustomerStatusCustomerStatus

1Customer Start

2Customer End

Payment CodePayment Desc

1Settled Late

2Settled On Time

3Invoiced

4Past Due

5Not Invoiced

-1N/A

Document TypeDocument

0Blank

1Payment

2Invoice

3Credit Memo

4Finance Charge Memo

5Reminder

6Refund

InvoiceTypeType

1Contract

2Assistance

3Other

CaseTypeCaseType

0Unknown

1Car

2Alarm

3Home

4Security

TransportedTocategoryIdTransportedTo

0N/A

1Non agreement garage

2Place of work or business

3Auto Salvage / Car Junk Yard

4Home address

5(non agreement garage)

6Police

7Agreement garage directly

8Agreement garage via Comp

9Goverment (Trafikketaten)

SubscriptionTypeSubscriptionTypeName

0Car

1Home

2Business

3First Aid

4Payment Subscription

5Miscellaneous

DocumentStatusDocumentStatus

1Open

2Posted

drew.allen SSC Guru Points: 76996 More actions · Answer 8

kewlguy13 (7/15/2016)
Thanks Drew for the comments!
If I had to design the Junk dimension with these values, what do you suggest.
What would be Junk Dimension structure?
Logic: I was thinking about CROSS JOIN.
Any ideas?

I've already given you the best guess I can give based on the information provided. For anything more refined, I would want to look at the distribution of various combinations, particularly looking for degree of correlation. From that you may find that several of the attributes have a strong enough correlation that they deserve their own dimension.

Drew

J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA

Umer Akram SSC-Insane Points: 22209 More actions · Answer 9

Check the following Mystery or Junk data warehouse dimensions . This might help you understand the working.

Remember you are in the best situation to understand the requirements/scenario and know what Should be done.

Hope it helps.

kewlguy13 SSC Enthusiast Points: 171 More actions · Answer 10

kewlguy13

SSC Enthusiast

Points: 171

July 19, 2016 at 5:14 am

#1890810

Thanks Guys!

I will get back to you.

RonKyle SSC-Dedicated Points: 31557 More actions · Answer 11

I would not recommend a junk dimension for such a large combination of items. I've used these a few times for a few combinations of yes/no, and once for four questions with answers 0-9. The latter makes for more than 10K possible combinations as I recall. But at least they were related to the same survey. Why don't you want these as separate dimensions?