Creating facts

A fact has two common characteristics: it is numeric and it is aggregatable. Examples of facts include sales dollars, units sold, profit, and cost.

Data warehouses contain different types of facts depending on the purpose of the data. For example, facts such as Tenure and Compensation Cost could exist in a data warehouse that contains human resources data. Facts such as Quantity and Item Cost could exist in a warehouse containing sales and distribution data.

It is important to understand how to define facts because facts are the basis for almost all metrics. Facts also allow you to create advanced metrics containing data that is not stored in the warehouse but can be derived by extending facts.

This section provides steps to create facts at different phases of the project design process, using different techniques and MicroStrategy interfaces:

• Simultaneously creating multiple, simple facts covers steps to create multiple, simple facts as part of the initial project design effort or later in a project's life cycle with the Fact Creation Wizard.

  You can also create multiple simple or advanced facts as part of the initial project design effort using Architect, as described in Creating and modifying simple and advanced facts.

• Creating and modifying simple and advanced facts covers steps to add and modify both simple and advanced facts for an existing project.