Multidimensional XBRL

Abstract

The complexity of data warehouse models based on the entity-relationship- model was one of the biggest driving forces behind multidimensional modelling. Designed models should be easily understood by a business expert and easily analyzed by the final user. Nevertheless, the evolution of the dimensional paradigm has showed that the business world is complex and it is necessary to introduce new concepts to the models to allow a greater level of representation. These include bridge tables, heterogeneous dimensions and factless fact tables (Kimball, Ross 2002). As a result, the designed model lacks the desired simplicity and does not yet guarantee the representation of all the semantics of the domain. This paper explores an alternative design of data warehouses that allows the creation of a model that reflects in a greater proportion the semantic of the business world and that can be exploited by the final user through different analysis tools. The alternative, based on XBRL Dimensional Taxonomies (XDT), is shown through a comparison with a dimensional model and the level of semantic representation. We explore all the limitations and ease of use derived from this standard reporting language, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The objective is to show a dimensional and a XDT design and stressing out the semantic richness of each approach. In order to do so, the article will explore briefly the background of a dimensional understanding of a problem domain in the second section. Then it will show dimensional XBRL as a more semantically approach to model a dimensional reality in the third section. To show this, the fourth section contains an example that will be applied in a real case study. © Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden 2007.