All data warehouses need a date dimension to enable proper analysis across dates. Most Data Warehouse designers will just use one provided by tools or whip it up in Excel, but what if you need to set up custom holidays or want different calendars, such as Fiscal or Julian? You can have any date dimension you need by using a single SQL script that can be modified and rerun as necessary. Learn what it takes to design a date dimension that does all of the calculations and formatting up-front so the reports can be easier to create. Sample script will be provided that creates the date dimension and can be reused as often as necessary without breaking your data warehouse and it only takes seconds to run!

1. Date Dimension in 30
Minutes or Less
Steve Wake
Consultant, RevGen Partners
President, Denver SQL Server User Group

2. What is a Date Dimension?
• Dimension to track dates (usually by day)
• Can track multiple calendars (Gregorian,
Julian, Fiscal)
• Time should be in separate Dimension (if
needed)
• One row per date/day

3. Why Date Dimension?
• Most reporting is done by date/time
• Track Holidays and other significant dates
• Do date calculations in SQL once
• Date/Time period comparisons
• Generate for years/decades easily

4. What to Include in the Date_DIM?
• Date as Integer for PK to make reload not break
links (20130806)
• Date in multiple formats (“08/06/2013”, “Tuesday,
August 6, 2013”, etc.)
• Multiple parts (Month, Day, Year, Month Text, Day
Text, etc.)
• Holiday indicator (domestic/international/religious)
• Gregorian/Julian/Fiscal Calendars
• Calculated measures (Day # in week, Day # in
month, Day # in year, Week # in month, Week # in
year, etc.)

5. Demo
• Date_DIM script

6. Summary
• What & Why of Date Dimensions
• Date Dimension Benefits
• What to Include in Date Dimension

7. September 20, 2014 on the University of Denver campus!
Multiple tracks of sessions
Speakers from across the country
Great Sponsors
Lots of Prizes
All of this for FREE!
Register @ denversqlsaturday.com
Pre-Cons! This year we are offering all day pre-cons on
Friday, September 19th at Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church
• Getting Started with Biml by Tim Mitchell & Reeves Smith
• Murder They Wrote by Jason Brimhall & Wayne Sheffield
• A Day of High Availability and Disaster Recovery by Ryan Adams
Details and links to register for pre-cons @ denversqlsaturday.com
organized by volunteers from Denver SQL Server User Group (denversql.org)

8. Contact
• swake@revgen.com
• @stevewake on Twitter
• LinkedIn, Google+
• Blog – http://wakebi.com