Business Key Treatments

Business keys are the crux of a data vault model; these are the unique values used to identify a business entity. The business entity could be an account, a product, a customer, that order number you received after making a purchase, that insurance policy number you were assigned when you have successfully applied for accident insurance, the VIN number found on a motor vehicle. Details about those business entities are tracked; such as details in insurance premiums, residential address and changes thereof. If you do not have a business key, you do not have a data vault.

So that is business keys squared away.

What are treatments then? In the statistical world these are the actions we apply to a value to give it more context or change its value; in other words, applying an action to influence a variable with justification. In credit risk, the word is used to define the actions applied to manage risk. In database marketing, we apply the terminology to describe the offers we make to a prospect.

When applying treatments to business keys, each function we apply to manipulate the business key can be thought of as an action with justification.