Naming fields in analytics

[vyacheslavg]

Hello, 

Could you please advise a good method to name fields in analytical data modeling?

For example, I have CustomerID in Customers and Orders tables.

In production database these names are the same (CustomerID in Customers and the same in Orders).

In analytical datamodel I want to differentiate these Ids, because it gets very confusing (at least to me).

For example, several approaches.

Customers-CustomerID and Orders-CustomerID

Another approach

CustomerID.Customers and CustomerID.Orders

In another words, I want to preserve the table name (full resolution), and in some cases even database name, like CustomerID.Customers.Accounting and CustomerID.Customers.Marketing

Otherwise it is getting pretty confusing in reports to understand to what database, table or file this field is from.

Maybe I'm on a wrong path here? Any suggestions or links to common practice would be appreciated.

[davehus · Accepted solution]

Hi @vyacheslavg, 

This video from Ruth Puzuelo might help.. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9k864FRg44&list=TLGG1xRQj2CNWg4xMTA1MjAxNw

Dave

[vyacheslavg]

Hi Dave, 

this is great.

It shows that PBI master is using the same technique for something in her workflow.

And there is even the M function to simplify this stuff.

Very useful indeed, thanks.