Process-oriented requirement analysis supporting the data warehouse design process a use case driven approach

Abstract

A comprehensive requirement analysis for data warehouse systems is mostly often the starting point for the implementation of an enterprise-wide decision support system. Because data warehouse systems concern many organisational units, the collection of unambiguous, complete, verifiable, consistent and usable requirements can be a very difficult task. Use cases are considered as standard notation for object-oriented requirement modelling. We illustrate how use cases enhances communication between domain experts, data warehouse specialists, data warehouse designers and other professionals with different backgrounds. They can be used on a general level, which is intuitive for the users of data warehouse system. This paper explains how use cases can be used to elicit requirements for data warehouse systems, and how to involve the organisational context in the modelling process. With an adapted object model, we demonstrate how to capture different analysis perspectives of the business process. We develop a predefined set of dimension objects that belong to every classic business process and are able to create various fact objects, representing these perspectives.