Olap type in data store properties

Question

Hello,
Can you please tell me what is the purpose of defining the OLAP type (dimension, fact table, SCD) in the data store properties in ODI? I'm already familiar with dimensions & fact tables as used in data warehousing modeling. I am just wondering how specifying the OLAP type of a data store affects its behavior.
Thank you,
Anju

Answer 1

If you set one of these properties on each column, then you can use a KM like this one : IKM Oracle Slowly Changing Dimension and it will implement SCD by itself.
For example if you have this source table and a target table with the same structure + two columns for the date (start and end) :
Source table PRODUCT :
ID .... BID ... NAME ..... PRICE
1 ..... 10 ..... ODI ....... 10
You set your properties onto your target datastore : ID as a surrogate key, BID as natural key, NAME as Overwrite on Change, PRICE as Add Row On Change, START as Starting Timestamp and finally END as Ending Timestamp.
You execute the interface a first time. You target datastore will contain something like this :
ID .... BID ... NAME ..... PRICE .... START ........... END
1 ..... 10 .... ODI ........ 10 ......... 30/10/2012 ... 31/12/3000
The next day, change the name of the product to OWB in your source and execute the interface again. Your target will look like this :
ID .... BID ... NAME ..... PRICE .... START ........... END
1 ..... 10 .... OWB ........ 10 ......... 30/10/2012 ... 31/12/3000
The next day, change the price of the product to set it to 20. Your target will look like this :
ID .... BID ... NAME ..... PRICE .... START ................. END
1 ..... 10 .... OWB ........ 10 ......... 30/10/2012 ........ *31/10/2012*
*1 ..... 10 .... OWB ........ 20 ......... 01/11/2012 ...... 31/12/3000*
This should help you but I'll try to look after some documentation. If I don't find it I'll write an article by myself next week ;).
Hope it helps.
Regards,
Jerome