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Vol. I · No. 251
Mon · 8 Jun
A Daily Lexicon of Trustworthy Data
The Lexicon

005·74

semantic model

/sɪˈmæn.tɪk ˈmɒd.əl/ - n.

1 [colloq.] The layer where the business finally agrees what 'revenue' means, defined four times to match four dashboards.Keep. Punchy.This is the problem.

Working definition

2. A layer that maps physical tables to business concepts, metrics, and dimensions so consumers query meaning rather than raw schema.

Promoted
See also
  • business glossaryA glossary in which the term 'owner' is the only entry without one.
  • canonical data modelThe one true model every system maps to, plus the per-system exceptions that quietly restore the chaos it replaced.
  • metric definitionThe document everyone cites and no one has read since the analyst who wrote it left.