productdim

Productdim is a dimension table used in data warehousing and business intelligence to store descriptive attributes about products. It is typically part of a star or snowflake schema, linking to a central fact table via a surrogate key while providing rich product context for analyses.

A typical product dimension includes a surrogate key (such as product_key) and a natural key (such as product_code). Common attributes cover product_name, description, category, brand, supplier, unit_of_measure, color, size, weight, material, release_date, and discontinued_date. Additional fields may include pricing, status, and other product-level descriptors. Some implementations treat price as an attribute that can change over time, using a slowly changing dimension approach (for example, Type 2) to preserve historical pricing.

The productdim enables analysts to filter, group, and drill down by product attributes, supporting queries like “sales by product category over time” or “top brands by revenue.” In a typical model, fact tables such as sales or inventory contain a product_key that references the productdim, while the natural key and descriptive fields remain in the dimension for reporting and lookup purposes.

Design considerations include the use of surrogate keys, handling slowly changing attributes, and deciding which attributes to denormalize for performance. Table design often favors stability and fast lookups, with careful governance over attribute definitions and hierarchies. Variants exist, and some organizations separate related dimensions (for example, dimProductCategory or dimBrand) or adopt different naming conventions (dimProduct, ProductDim).