Transaction data versus reference data
One of the key steps in data architecture is the understanding of the difference between Transaction data and Reference data.- Transaction data is about events, actions, state changes and are usually described with verbs. Think work management, thinking paying the bills.
- Reference data is about things, physical or imaginary and are usually described with nouns. Think assets, cost centers, people.
When 'architecting' solutions we see that transaction data is treated differently than reference data.
- Transactions usually form a flow of events and are therefore characterising the change through the lifecycle of a business process. Further transactions can be summarised, aggregated and become management information, or archived when not longer needed. A typical transaction environment is SAP
- Reference data usually relate to one or more transactions and can be same all over the business process (although transactions may change the attributes of a reference object). Reference data can be organised in hierarchies and then the higher levels of the hierarchies are the aggregation levels for the transaction data. Reference data shared across a number of functions can be called master reference data. In order to keep this data consistent it is important to share it from one place (enter only once, use many times)
This all seems pretty obvious, but the experience I have is that people mix up the two types and do not understand that there are different rules governing the management of systems with this data.
Labels: master reference data, transaction data
posted by Evert Ruijs @ 1:05 PM
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