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Handling Early Arriving Facts Presented By Sutha Thiru Edenbrook ETL Capability Lead 6 th October 2007

Agenda Typical Warehouse Architecture Early Arriving Facts Handling early arriving facts Demo Two Fact Tables Per One Fact Table BISC Resources Q & A 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/3

Typical Warehouse Architecture 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/4 SQL Server CSV Files / Text Files Oracle DB2 ODS Stage Warehouse AS Cube Reporting Services Pro Clarity Performance Point Share Point Excel Reporting Services Pro Clarity Performance Point Share Point Excel

Early Arriving Facts “An Early arriving fact takes place when the activity measurement arrives at the data warehouse without its full context. In other words, the statuses of the dimensions attached to the activity measurement are ambiguous or unknown for some period of time” Kimball Design Tip #57 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/5

Early Arriving Facts (Contd.) 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/6 Warehouse Source DataStage Fact Record – Joe Bloggs, £100Dimension – 1, John Smith SSIS

Early Arriving Facts (Contd.) We are running a real-time business. When will we get the rest of the data. Example for early arriving fact, Sales Transaction for £100 for Customer “Joe Bloggs”. We do not have “Joe Bloggs” in our customer dimension table. 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/7

Points To Be Aware Late arriving facts vs early arriving facts. Dimensions are “not accurate”. Business Intelligence Service Centre (BISC) will get all the exception reports highlighting default dimensions as well as rejected facts. 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/8

Handling Early Arriving Facts 3 Options – Reject early arriving facts altogether. – Map early arriving facts to default Surrogate key. – Generate dimension on the fly and map the surrogate key to the fact record. 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/9

Handling Early Arriving Facts DEMO 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/10

2 Fact Tables Why do we recommend two fact tables? – When default surrogate key (-1) is mapped we don’t load the main fact table. – We load them into separate fact tables. – BISC is responsible to fix these default surrogate key fact records. 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/11

2 Fact Tables (Contd.) 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/12

2 Fact Tables (Contd.) 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/13 Why do we do this?

Business Intelligence Service Centre (BISC) The objective of the BISC is to support the business in deriving maximum value from the Business Intelligence solution as well as working with IT to ensure the solution evolves on a sound technical foundation Key Personnel BISC Manager Data Manager BI Senior Analyst 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/14

BI Skills & Processes Data & Technology BISC 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/15 Business The Success of BISC dependant on Placing Business at the heart of BISC.

BISC Responsible For Provides BI Roadmap Governance Facilitate communication Standardise internal and external reporting Support business users in self service reporting Provides a central unit for a data stewardship Validating specification for reports 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/16

BISC Is Not Responsible For Data not in the BI Framework Cleaning the data Authoring Reports 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/17

BISC Roles BISC Manager – Overall responsibility for BISC – BI Roadmap Management – Benefits Realisation Data Manager – Meta Data Management – Organise Data Cleansing Process – Define Data Management approach 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/18

BISC Roles (Contd.) BI Senior Analyst – Gather requirements for future phases – Support business to create reports – Liaise with key users in the business – Intermediary role between IT and business – Perform advanced analysis where required 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/19

Resources aspx?forumid=80&siteid=1 aspx?forumid=80&siteid=1 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/20

Thank You Q & A 06/10/2007http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tsutha/21

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