Samatha

• Nov 16th, 2006

 

if a fact table represents an interesting event or transation, a "casual dimension" gives information on "why this event has occured at the first place". It gives the cause of the event/transaction.

Ex: Lets take a retail model and the fact table grain represents an item brought by the customer.

Buying of a particular item itself is an interesting event and the marketing folks may want to know why this has happened.

In this case, the casual dimension stores information about any advertising or discounts for that particular item.

http://www.dbmsmag.com/9608d05.html