Fact table

A fact table is a data warehousing concept. It consists of the measurements, metrics or facts of a business process. It is often located at the centre of a star schema, surrounded by dimension tables.

= Example =

If the business process is SALES, then the corresponding fact table will typically contain values representing both raw facts and aggregations such as:

$12,000 , being sales for New York store for 15-Jan-2005

$34,000 , being sales for Los Angeles store for 15-Jan-2005

$22,000 , being sales for New York store for 16-Jan-2005

$40,000 , being sales for Los Angeles store for 16-Jan-2005

$21,000 , being average daily sales for Los Angeles Store for Jan-2005

$35,000 , being average daily sales for Los Angeles Store for Feb-2005

$33,000 , being average daily sales for Los Angeles Store for year 2005

average monthly sales is a measurement which is stored in the fact table. The fact table also contains foreign keys from the dimension tables, where time series (e.g. dates) and other Dimensions (e.g. store location, salesman, product) are stored.