Identify the Data Source Table Structure

When you build a semantic model, you map logical tables to the underlying physical tables in your data sources. Before you can map the tables, you need to identify the contents of the physical data sources as it relates to your business model.

Identify the following contents of the physical data source:

• Identify the contents of each table.

• Identify the detail level for each table.

• Identify the table definition for each aggregate table. This lets you set up the aggregate navigation. The Oracle Analytics query engine requires the following:

  • The columns the tables are grouped by (the aggregation level).

  • The type of aggregation: SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, or COUNT.

• Identify the contents of each column.

• Identify how each measure is calculated.

• Identify the joins defined in the database.

To find this information, go to any available documentation that describes the data elements created when the data source was implemented. Or you could work with the DBA for each data source to gather this information.

To fully understand all of the data elements, you could ask the people who use or own the data, or the developers of the applications that create the data.