best way to import data for creating a star schema

[itismie]

Hi

Can anyone explain me the following 

We have several database in datawarehouse which we can import in power bi (via teradata, sql)

Those databases are ready to use (without doing some manipulations)

example:

table : customer (contains all customer info)

table: calender (contains date info)

table:  sales by customer (contains sales info by customer, some customer inf is already available)

For my report I need the "sales by customer" table" & "calender"

When I import my data in power bi, they told me to not load all info from my "sales by customer table" (althougt it contains everything I need) but to load also the table "customer" and to do the following:

• import table customer
• import table sales by customer (but only keep as customer info and remove all the other customer_info like cust_nm and keep the customer_id to make a link with the table "customer")
• import table calender

Is this not a bit ridiculous, because when I import the following to tables I have enough info for making my report

• import table customer 
• import table sales by customer

Or am I missing something else?

Annemie

[mahoneypat · Accepted solution]

Either is acceptable and I agree you should do the minimum you need.  The trade off for having just the two tables will be that not having a column with 1 row/customer may complicate some of the DAX expressions you'll write a little.  And if you later expand your model with other customer-related data, you will benefit from already having a Customer table (that you can make a 1:many relationship with and keep those later DAX expressions simpler).

Regards,

Pat