After specifying business processes in each data domain, you need to define dimensions and build a bus matrix based on these dimensions.
Define dimensions
When dividing data domains and building a bus matrix, you need to define dimensions based on the analysis of business processes. This tutorial takes the e-commerce marketing business unit of Company A as an example. In the transaction data domain, this tutorial focuses on the business process of receipt confirmation, where a transaction is successful.
In the business process of receipt confirmation, dimensions can be defined from two perspectives: product and place of receipt. This tutorial assumes that each product is purchased and received in the same place. From the product perspective, the following dimensions can be defined:
Product ID, which is the primary key
Product name
Product price
Product status: 0: new; 1: idle; 2: second-hand
Product category ID
Product category name
Commodity ID
Commodity name
Buyer ID
Product sales status: 0: normal; 1: deleted; 2: taken off the shelf; 3: never put on the shelf
City of the product
Province of the product
From the region perspective, the following dimensions can be defined:
City code
City name
Province code
Province name
As the core of dimensional modeling, dimensions must be unique in an enterprise-level data warehouse. For example, each dimension defined from the product perspective must be unique for Company A. The province code dimension delivers the same information in any business process.
Build a bus matrix
After specifying business processes in each data domain, you can build a bus matrix. You need to identify the dimensions that are related to each business process and define the business processes and dimensions in each data domain. The following table lists the bus matrix of the transaction order feature in the e-commerce marketing business unit of Company A. The dimensions defined include the province, city, category name, category ID, brand name, brand ID, product name, product ID, and turnover.
Data domain/Business process | Conformed dimensions | |||||||||
Province | City | Category ID | Category name | Brand ID | Brand name | Product ID | Product name | Turnover | ||
Transaction | Order placement | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Payment | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
Shipping | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
Receipt confirmation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
Yes indicates that the dimension is included, whereas No indicates that the dimension is excluded.