A Method for Data Warehouse Design - Data Warehouse Systems: Design and Implementation - page 401

Develop Initial Schema
Since the multidimensional elements have been identified in the requirements
specification phase, the development of an initial data warehouse conceptual
schema is straightforward. The usual practice for these kinds of schemas is to
use names for the various schema elements that facilitate user understanding.
However, in some cases, users are familiar with the technical names used in
the source systems. Therefore, designers should develop a dictionary of names
to facilitate communication with the users.
Validate Conceptual Schema with Users
The schema was obtained starting from the data sources. Thus, at this point,
the participation of the users has been minimal, consisting of responding only
to specific inquiries from the designer. In this step, users are incorporated in
a more active role. Most of the time, these users belong to the professional
or administrative level because of their knowledge of the underlying systems.
The initial schema is examined in detail, and it is possible that it requires
some modification for several reasons: (1) it may contain more elements than
those required for the analysis purposes of the decision-making users; (2)
some elements may require transformation (e.g., attributes into hierarchies);
and (3) some elements could be missing even though they exist in the source
systems (e.g., owing to confusing names). Note that the inclusion of new
elements may require further interaction with the source systems.
Develop Final Conceptual Schema and Mappings
Users' recommendations about changes are incorporated into the initial
schema, leading to a final conceptual schema that should be approved by the
users. In this stage, an abstract specification of mappings and transformations
(if required) between the data in the source systems and the data in the data
warehouse is defined.
During all the above steps of the conceptual-design phase, a specification
of the business, technical, and ETL metadata should be developed, following
the same guidelines as those described for the analysis-driven approach.
10.4.4 Source-Driven Conceptual Design for the
Northwind Case Study
Develop Initial Schema
The requirements elicitation phase discussed in Sect. 10.3.4 resulted in
the multidimensional elements depicted in Table 10.2 , namely, the facts,