Labels:text | screenshot | parallel | font | diagram | line | number OCR: Date Shipments many date attributes date key Product product key many product attributes Customer customer _key many customer attributes warehouse key deal_key Warehouse Deal Quantity_Shipped many warehouse attributes Extended Invoice Price many deal attributes Deal Discount Quantity _Discount Shipping Charge Net_Invoice Extended Std_Cost Margin Dollars FIGURE 1 The central fact table is the largest table in the schema and the only one with a composite key. The fact table consists of "facts" that can be thought of as measurements of the business taken at the intersection of the dimensions. The most useful facts are numeric and additive, because a typical query fetches hundreds or thousands of these fact records at a time. The surrounding dimension tables are much smaller than the fact table, and each has a single part key. The fields in dimension tables are typically textual and provide constraints and row headers in reports. The best dimension tables are denormalized, single-level tables with several rich descriptive entries.
