In this chapter
8.1 Assign authority before designing a warehouse
The institution needs an agreed meaning for request, approval, fulfilment and outstanding obligation. A database schema can encode a definition; it cannot establish its institutional authority. Name the owner who decides the meaning, the steward who investigates exceptions and the technical custodian who operates storage. For the example, a request version is authoritative in the request domain. Execution facts belong to operations. The finance report combines those facts under an approved contract without rewriting their source meaning.
8.2 Information model
| Information object | Authority | Key relationship | Control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Request version | Request owner | Stable request ID plus version | Changes do not silently retain approval |
| Approval decision | Delegated authority | References exact request version | Actor, scope and decision time retained |
| Fulfilment entry | Operations owner | References authorization | Partial and reversed execution distinguished |
| Report publication | Finance owner | Contract version and source cut-off | Coverage and revision visible |
| Exception | Assigned steward | Source reference and rule version | Resolution does not erase original evidence |
Retention and access apply to these objects and their copies. The design must identify sensitive fields, attachment handling and any permitted use in test environments. “Keep raw data” is not a blanket permission to retain everything indefinitely.
8.3 Source-to-report lineage
Separate business event time, arrival time and publication time. A branch may submit Monday’s execution after reconnecting on Wednesday. Replacing the business timestamp with ingestion time would change the report’s meaning. Record corrections as revisions or authorized adjustments according to the institution’s policy.
8.4 Reporting contract and quality controls
Define grain, included states, period, currency treatment, expected sources and late-arrival policy. For one known cut-off, reconcile eligible source records against accepted records and identified exceptions, where those sets are mutually exclusive by definition.
- Missing references remain visible with a responsible steward.
- Repeated input does not duplicate an accepted fact.
- Corrections have a version policy and a replay test.
- Publication states whether expected sources are complete.
- A successful processing job does not by itself establish correct totals.
8.5 Analytical evolution and AI readiness
A daily projection is proposed initially because the scenario has not established a real-time decision need. Introduce a separate analytical platform when history, isolation or analytical workload justifies the additional operating contract. AI use requires a separate problem definition, permitted data use, evaluation set, error consequences and human oversight. A clean data pipeline does not prove a model is appropriate. Begin with traceable data and a measurable decision problem; do not label ordinary reporting as AI to make the architecture appear more advanced.
8.6 Acceptance package
The data owner approves definitions and retention. Finance signs off a representative reconciliation. Engineering demonstrates replay and correction behaviour. The architecture record links source objects to report fields and exposes unresolved quality limitations before the report is relied upon.