Business Intelligence Tutorial

Selecting the fact table

Every model needs a fact table, which is the center of the star schema. The fact table is composed of one or more relational tables that contain facts, such as units sold or cost of goods, and foreign keys that link the fact table to each dimension table. In this lesson, the fact table will also be used as the Accounts dimension. The Accounts dimension contains numeric data that you want to analyze and track over time, such as sales or inventory; this data is also called variable measures data and enables accounting intelligence during online analytical processing.

To select the fact table:

  1. On the Select Fact Table page, notice the default value of Accounts in the Name field. Do not change this value. In this lesson, you will automatically create an Accounts dimension using the fact table.
  2. In the Available Relational Tables field, click TBC.FACT_TABLE.
  3. Click the right arrow button, and TBC.FACT_TABLE is displayed in the Selected Relational Tables field. The window looks like this:
    Select Fact Table 2
  4. Click Next and the Select Time page is displayed.


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