I love volleyball as much as I love data. However, as this is a blog about data, I’ll leave the theories I have related to setting the ball at the door and move forward on the topic of data. Believe it or not, you learned the basics of how a data warehouse works way back…
Category: Fact Design
Don’t Know Much About… NULL Values
The Best of Sam Cooke was the first CD I ever bought. One of my favorite songs on that CD, “Wonderful World“, begins with the iconic line “Don’t know much about history.” Through the rest of the song, Cooke sings about a number of the other things he “don’t know much about”. He then ends…
Shoot for the Star Schema!
The phrase “Shoot for the stars!” has long been associated with trying to achieve something thought impossible, with the idea that while you may not get all of the way there, by aiming for something grandiose, you will at least achieve more than if you set your goals at something easily accomplished. In more recent…
Because You Know It’s All About the Grain
The most important question to answer when designing a fact table is to determine what the grain of the transaction you wish to record is. Quite literally, it’s all about the base grain. If you select too high of a grain, the you lose your ability to drill down into more detailed analysis. If you…
Just the Facts, Jack!
While we’ve previously discussed the importance of determining the grain of your fact table, we really didn’t cover exactly what data elements should go into the table. One of the reasons much of this site will concentrate on dimensions is because the dimensional data keys are integral to the fact table build. Once you determine the…
Who’s On First?
The six basic questions every data warehouse should answer.
Rock the Data! 