Kimball Group: Data Warehouse Training: Design Tips

Welcome to Kimball Design Tips
Thanks for subscribing to our Design Tips! Here’s the complete Design Tip library, including the current year which is only available to subscribers. Happy reading!

Design Tips 2012
Design Tip #145	Time Stamping Accumulating Snapshot Fact Tables
Design Tip #144	History Lesson on Ralph Kimball and Xerox PARC
Design Tip #143	Enjoy the Sunset
Design Tip #142	Building Bridges

Design Tips 2011
Design Tip #141	Expanding Boundaries of the Data Warehouse
Design Tip #140	Is it a Dimension, a Fact, or Both?
Design Tip #139	Much Ado About Nothing
Design Tip #138	Use a Design Charter to Keep Dimensional Design Activities on Track
Design Tip #137	Creating and Managing Shrunken Dimensions
Design Tip #136	Adding a Mini-Dimension to a Bridge Table
Design Tip #135	Conformed Dimensions as the Foundation for Agile Data Warehousing
Design Tip #134	Data Warehouse Testing Recommendations
Design Tip #133	Factless Fact Tables for Simplification
Design Tip #132	Kimball Forum Update
Design Tip #131	Easier Approaches For Harder Problems

Design Tips 2010
Design Tip #130	Accumulating Snapshots for Complex Workflows
Design Tip #129	Are IT Procedures Beneficial to DW/BI Projects?
Design Tip #128	Selecting Default Values for Nulls
Design Tip #127	Creating and Managing Mini-Dimensions
Design Tip #126	Disruptive ETL Changes
Design Tip #125	Balancing Requirements and Realities
Design Tip #124	Alternatives for Multi-valued Dimensions
Design Tip #123	Using the Dimensional Model to Validate Business Requirements
Design Tip #122	Call to Action for ETL Tool Providers
Design Tip #121	Columnar Databases: Game Changers for DW/BI Deployment?
Design Tip #120	Design Review Dos and Don’ts

Design Tips 2009 (PDF format—2009 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #119	Updating the Date Dimension
Design Tip #118	Managing Backlogs Dimensionally
Design Tip #117	Dealing with Data Quality: Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something!
Design Tip #116	Add Uncertainty to Your Fact Table
Design Tip #115	Kimball Lifecycle in a Nutshell
Design Tip #114	Avoiding Alternate Organization Hierarchies
Design Tip #113	Creating, Using, and Maintaining Junk Dimensions
Design Tip #112	Creating Historical Dimension Rows
Design Tip #111	Is Agile Enterprise Data Warehousing an Oxymoron?
Design Tip #110	Business Requirements Gathering Dos and Don’ts
Design Tip #109	Dos and Don’ts on the Kimball Forum

Design Tips 2008 (PDF format—2008 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #108	Design Tip #108 When is the Dimensional Model Design Done?
Design Tip #107	Using the SQL MERGE Statement for Slowly Changing Dimension Processing
Design Tip #106	Can the Data Warehouse Benefit from SOA?
Design Tip #105	Snowflakes, Outriggers, and Bridges
Design Tip #104	Upgrading your BI Architecture
Design Tip #103	Staffing the Dimensional Modeling Team
Design Tip #102	Server Configuration Considerations
Design Tip #101	Slowly Changing Vocabulary
Design Tip #100	Keep Your Keys Simple
Design Tip #99	Staging Areas and ETL Tools
Design Tip #98	Focus on Data Stewardship

Design Tips 2007 (PDF format—2007 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #97	Modeling Data as Both a Fact and Dimension Attribute
Design Tip #96	Think Like A Software Development Manager
Design Tip #95	Patterns to Avoid when Modeling Header/Line Item Transactions
Design Tip #94	Building Custom Tools for the DW/BI System
Design Tip #93	Transactions Create Time Spans
Design Tip #92	Dimension Manager and Fact Provider
Design Tip #91	Marketing the DW/BI System
Design Tip #90	Slowly Changing Entities
Design Tip #89	The Real Time Triage
Design Tip #88	Dashboards Done Right
Design Tip #87	Combining SCD Techniques Having It Both Ways

Design Tips 2006 (PDF format—2006 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #86		Reference Dimensions for Infrequently-Accessed Degenerates
Design Tip #85		Smart Date Keys to Partition Fact Tables
Design Tip #84		Readers’ Suggestions on Fact Table Surrogate Keys
Design Tip #83		Resist Abstract Generic Dimensions
Design Tip #82		Pivoting the Fact Table with a Fact Dimension
Design Tip #81		Fact Table Surrogate Keys
Design Tip #80		Dimension Row Change Reason Attributes
Design Tip #79		Dangerously Large Dimension Tables
Design Tip #78		Late Arriving Dimension Rows
Design Tip #77		Warning: Summary Data may be Hazardous
Design Tip #76		Advantages of a 64-bit Server
Design Tip #75		Creating the Metadata Strategy

Design Tips 2005 (PDF format—2005 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #74		Compliance-Enabled Data Warehouses
Design Tip #73		Relating to Agile Methodologies
Design Tip #72		Business Process Decoder Ring
Design Tip #71		Naming Conventions
Design Tip #70		Architecting Data for MS SQL Server 2005
Design Tip #69		Identifying Business Processes
Design Tip #68		Simple Drill-Across in SQL
Design Tip #67		Maintaining Back Pointers to Operational Sources
Design Tip #66		Implementation Analysis Paralysis
Design Tip #65		Document the ETL System
Design Tip #64		Avoid Isolating the DW and BI Teams
Design Tip #63		Building a Change Data Capture System


Design Tips 2004 (PDF format—2004 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #62		Alternate Hierarchies
Design Tip #61		Handling all the Dates
Design Tip #60		Big Shifts in Business Intelligence
Design Tip #59		Surprising Value of Data Profiling
Design Tip #58		BI Portal
Design Tip #57		Early Arriving Facts
Design Tip #56		Dimensional Modeling for Microsoft Analysis Services
Design Tip #55		Exploring Text Facts
Design Tip #54		Delivering Historical and Current Perspectives
Design Tip #53		Dimension Embellishments
Design Tip #52		Improving Operating Procedures
Design Tip #51		Latest Thinking on Time Dimension Tables

Design Tips 2003 (PDF format—2003 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #50		Factless Fact Tables
Design Tip #49		Off the Bench about the Bottoms Up Misnomer
Design Tip #48		De-clutter with Junk Dimensions
Design Tip #47		Business Initiatives versus Business Processes
Design Tip #46		Another Look at Degenerate Dimensions
Design Tip #45		Techniques for Modeling Intellectual Capital
Design Tip #44		Reliance on the BI Tool’s Metadata
Design Tip #43		Dealing With Nulls in a Dimensional Model
Design Tip #42		Combining Periodic and Accumulating Snapshots

Design Tips 2002 (PDF format—2002 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #41		Drill Down into a Detailed Bus Matrix
Design Tip #40		Structure of an Analytic Application
Design Tip #39		Bus Architecture Foundation for Analytic Applications
Design Tip #38		Analytic Application—What's That?
Design Tip #37		Modeling a Pipeline with Accumulating Snapshots
Design Tip #36		To Be or Not To Be Centralized
Design Tip #35		Modeling Time Spans
Design Tip #34		You Don't Need an EDW
Design Tip #33		Using CRM Measures as Behavior Tags
Design Tip #32		Doing the Work at Extract Time

Design Tips 2001 (PDF format—2001 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #31		Designing a Real Time Partition
Design Tip #30		Put your Fact Tables on a Diet
Design Tip #29		Graceful Modifications to Existing Fact and Dimension Tables
Design Tip #28		Avoiding Catastrophic Failure of the Data Warehouse
Design Tip #27		Being Off-line as Little as Possible
Design Tip #26		Audit Dimensions to Track Lineage and Confidence
Design Tip #25		Dimensional Models for Parent-Child Applications
Design Tip #24		Multinational Dimensional Data Warehouse Considerations
Design Tip #23		Rolling Prediction of the Future
Design Tip #22		Variable Depth Customer Dimensions
Design Tip #21		Declaring the Grain
Design Tip #20		Sparse Facts and Facts with Short Lifetimes
Design Tip #19		Replicating Dimensions Correctly
Design Tip #18		Taking the Publishing Metaphor Seriously
Design Tip #17		Populating Hierarchy Helper Tables

Design Tips 2000 (PDF format—2000 design tips zipped)
Design Tip #16		Hot Swappable Dimensions
Design Tip #15		Combining SCD Techniques
Design Tip #14		Arbitrary Balance Reporting with Transaction Facts
Design Tip #13		When Fact Tables can be used as Dimensions
Design Tip #12		Accurate Counting with a Dimensional Supplement
Design Tip #11		Accurate Counts within a Dimension
Design Tip #10		Is your Data Correct
Design Tip #9		Processing Slowly Changing Dimensions during Initial Load
Design Tip #8		Perfectly Partioning History with Type 2 SCD
Design Tip #7		Getting your Data Warehouse back on Track
Design Tip #6		Showing the Correlation between Dimensions
Design Tip #5		Surrogate Keys for the Time Dimension
Design Tip #4		Fast Changing Complex Customer Dimensions
Design Tip #3		Focus on Business Process, not Business Departments
Design Tip #2		Multiple Time Stamps
Design Tip #1		Guidelines for an Expressive Clickstream Data Mart