The Four-Step Process in Detail

Apply Kimball's methodology step by step

Step 1: Select the Business Process

The business process is the subject area you want to model. It should be:

Atomic

Represent the most granular level of detail

Business-focused

Align with how the business operates

Measurable

Generate numeric facts that can be analyzed

Explore Different Industry Scenarios

Retail Store: Sales Transaction

Industry Focus:

Retail store operations and point-of-sale

Modeled Process:

Sales Transaction Processing

Key Challenge:

Multi-channel customer interactions and seasonal variations

Analytics Goal:

Revenue optimization, customer behavior analysis, inventory management

Why model this process?

Every sale passes through this process, generating high-volume, well-structured data that ties directly to core KPIs like revenue, margin, basket size, and conversion. It is clearly bounded, fully measurable, and feeds many downstream analytics use cases.

Process Flow:
Customer Enters Store
Browses Products
Selects Items
Checkout Process
Payment Processing
Transaction Recorded