An application we have has the two following fields on the data entry form.
Origin
Origin Reference
On the data entry form Origin is actually a drop down list containing things like "Customer", "Supplier", "Employee", "Other", etc. So when "Customer" is selected, the Origin Reference field becomes a drop down list of customers. The behavior is the same if "Supplier" or "Employee" are selected.
I'm fairly new to dimensional modeling and SSAS but it seems to me that these two field should be used together in the same dimension forming a hierarchy. Maybe I'm wrong.
The problem I've run into is in some cases "Other" is selected. When "Other" is selected the Origin Reference field on the entry form becomes a free text box and the user can type anything. What has happened is that sometimes they have selected "Other" for Origin and then typed a customer or supplier name or an employee. Then when I tried to combine these in the same dimension I got an error. I don't recall what the exact error was but I believe it may have been a duplicate key error. I was in a hurry to get the cube finished so I split these two columns into two separate dimensions.
Am I correct in thinking these should be in a single dimension with a hiearchy? If so, any suggestions for taking source data like this and cleaning it up so the dimension will process?
Thanks in advance. BTW, I'm using SQL Server 2008 R2.
Kevin