Star Schema The Complete Reference

CHAPTER 11Transactions, Snapshots, and Accumulating Snapshots

Each star schema in the preceding chapters features a fact table that measures activities. This kind of fact table is known as a transaction fact table. As you have seen, it supports a wide variety of analytic possibilities with great efficiency and can be used to capture detailed granular information about a process. Some facts, however, cannot be easily studied using this kind of design, and others cannot be accommodated at all.

This chapter introduces two additional kinds of fact table: the snapshot and the accumulating snapshot. It begins with a review of the transaction fact table design, highlighting some key characteristics covered in previous chapters. Snapshots and accumulating ...