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Define fact table

Short answer

A fact table is the central table in a dimensional schema storing numeric measures of a business process and foreign keys to dimensions at a defined grain. Example: Sales_Fact(time_key, item_key, branch_key, customer_key, units_sold, dollars_sold) records each sale with measures units_sold and dollars_sold linked to time, item, branch, and customer dimensions.

Define Fact table with example.

A fact table is the central table of a dimensional (star/snowflake) schema. It stores the measures (numeric, usually additive values) of a business process, together with foreign keys to the dimension tables. Each row is one fact at the chosen grain. It is usually the largest table and grows continuously.

Example: Sales_Fact(time_key, item_key, branch_key, customer_key, units_sold, dollars_sold). Here units_sold and dollars_sold are the measures and the four keys point to the time, item, branch and customer dimensions. One row records the sale of an item on a day at a branch to a customer.

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

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