I don't think you have a degerate dimension just because you are populating it from the fact table. If fifty fact rows with the same date end up inserting...

I agree. A view has it's uses, but it can make things very complicated. A field added to table would subsequently...

SSAS is a source; SSRS is a reporting tool. You can't really report using SSAS, but you can have other things connect to it besides SSRS to do reports....

For one time populations, there shouldn't be an issue with RBAR.

Why did you opt for a snowflake schema? There are limited uses for this in an OLAP design, but most designs are properly down using the star schema.

As for...

This is difficult to answer because more information would be useful. As a general rule, however, in an OLAP environment you want as much information pre-calculated as possible. ...

I'm not normally a fan of views in an OLTP environment. They have uses, but I just haven't run across that particular need.

I have found them very useful in...

I agree. Concentrate on...

From what I've read, data warehouses for financial institutions can be extremely complicated. So be careful. If you're a beginner, you may need outside help.

To address of couple...

I've never done an individual cube, and your suggestion seems to imply it's in the database and not SSAS. In either case, what do you think about restoring the...

Normally I don't add something...

The main advantage for me was that this is something that is used often within queries and this solution could have made the report not hit the fact table to...

For those using 2005, I would recommend doing a left join from the staging table to the target table, including in the SELECT statement of the columns that would be...

Create a cube using it as a fact table. A table can be a dimension or fact table, though normally the relationship with other tables is the determing factor....

You can have the duplicates in the fact table, but not in the dimension table. Is that the issue?