What is the meaning actually for DWH

Question

What is the meaning actually for DWH

RADISSOUFAN

Old Hand

Points: 333
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July 26, 2023 at 4:38 am

#4244668

Hello..
Im working on a data facility almost since 8 years on a BI and DWH design … and there was always a question on my head about designing the DWH
when we talk about storing data .. are we talking about every part , column , row , cell of data or are we talking about a history based on indicator or KPI…
for example if we are talking about a Dwh for a labour force survey, we are talking about unemployment rate which is critical indicator …
in the DWH I care about the employment status and nationality and gender for example and I care about fully completed surveys only…
but some times some requests come to me like , give us a phone number of all participants.. or whats the participants with (delete flag =1)
those informations I dont care what Im talking about the indicator.. so whats the correct design of the DWH … can any one help me

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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Martin Schoombee SSCoach Points: 19128 More actions · Answer 1

The premise of a Data Warehouse is to store historical information, so that you can go back in time and see what the value of a metric and/or KPI was at a given point in the past. If your Data Warehouse does not account for that, you probably have a good reason to rethink the design.

In my opinion, your Data Warehouse should also account for enquiries like "what was the phone number of the participant in this survey a year ago", even if not directly used in your metrics and/or KPIs. This doesn't necessarily mean that you store every single attribute of every single entity, but it does mean that you should think about (and work with the business to understand if) including some of these peripheral attributes will be useful.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 2

My personal feeling is that phone numbers for people that have taken a survey are actually no one's business and should not be included in a DW.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Martin Schoombee SSCoach Points: 19128 More actions · Answer 3

Martin Schoombee

SSCoach

Points: 19128

July 26, 2023 at 5:52 pm

#4245243

Hypothetically speaking, Jeff 🙂

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 4

Heh... I saw no indication of your comment being hypothetical. I'm concerned that others won't, either. 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

ZZartin SSC-Dedicated Points: 30920 More actions · Answer 5

I tend to subscribe to the idea of it's better to have the data and not need it than need the data and not have it. There's obviously some limits to what you might reasonably want and storage considerations but in general if something was important initially it might be important again.

MarkP Old Hand Points: 305 More actions · Answer 6

A data warehouse should be built to answer business questions in an accurate and timely manner.

If they are driving their campaigns from the data warehouse, i.e. using it for something other than its main purpose, that's fine but then you need to apply all your good CRM practices to your data warehouse - things like maintaining contact permissions, etc.

cyrusbaratt SSC-Addicted Points: 417 More actions · Answer 7

Yes, The phone number could be a PII. So it should be a choice for the information provider.

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