About Dimensions
A dimension is a string field that is used to categorize data in order to enable users to answer business questions. Commonly used dimensions are customer, product, promotion, channel, and time. For example, each sales channel of a clothing retailer might gather and store data regarding sales and reclamations of their clothing assortment. The retail chain management can analyze the sales of its products across all stores over time and help answer questions such as:
What is the effect of promoting one product on the sale of a related product that is not promoted?
What are the sales of a product before and after a promotion?
How does a promotion affect the various distribution channels?