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Time dimension - update

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Post  marric Sun Jun 06, 2010 8:04 pm

Hi,

I was not sure if this question was for ETL or here ;-)

This is the situation : I have created a DW and a cube for statistic for Paramedic events. I'm working for the governement of canada and they are using some unusual financial period (13 period in 1 year). Those period can't be programmaticaly inserted in the time dimension and those preriod are not in the source database so the time dimension can't be filled with the preiod and the ETL process.

So, I want to know if anyone have any hint on how to manage that ? It is against the best pratice to allow "admin" users to insert those period in the time dimension table with some query update (A user could say that all time dimension record between 2010/04/01 and 2010/04/28 is period 1) => They could do that from a webpage.

Sould I create a period config table outside the DW and let user manage that table and use that table in my ETL process for setting the period attribute in the time dimension table ?

Thanks and sorry for the bad english

Richard

marric

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Post  ngalemmo Sun Jun 06, 2010 11:47 pm

A 13 period year is not that unusual (or, at least it didn't use to be) and there is no reason you could not carry the fiscal period as an attribute in the time dimension.

There should be business rules that govern how the calendar is defined. It is most likely possible to write code to update the time dimension rather than having the business do it.
ngalemmo
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Post  marric Mon Jun 07, 2010 7:22 am

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Actually, its the start date and end date of each period that is unsusual. Also, they can often change
the period date. Like last week, they made a change in the period range for the year 2011. So, its kind of difficult to have a program that can write those period in the time dimension table.

For the fiscal period, I was planning to put that in the time dimension as an attribute, I was not sure tho if it was ok
to make user update the value of the attribute with some query update or having a config table with start_date, end_date, name_of_period and make the ETL process put those period in the time dimension table.

thanks again and have a great day !

Richard

marric

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Post  ngalemmo Mon Jun 07, 2010 11:58 am

If it can vary like that, then have the business provide a table like you described with fiscal period and start and end date. Treat the table as any other dimensional source and use the data to update the time dimension as part of the normal update processing.
ngalemmo
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Post  marric Mon Jun 07, 2010 12:52 pm

ngalemmo wrote:If it can vary like that, then have the business provide a table like you described with fiscal period and start and end date. Treat the table as any other dimensional source and use the data to update the time dimension as part of the normal update processing.

Thanks alot for the time taken to answer ;-)

Have a great day

marric

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