Reg: Fact table and Dimension table in Data Warehousing -

Hi Experts,
I'm not exactly getting the difference between the criteria which decide how to create a Fact table and Dimension table.
This link http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9362854/database-fact-table-and-dimension-table states :
Fact table contains data that can be aggregate.
Measures are aggregated data expressions (e. Sum of costs, Count of calls, ...)
Dimension contains data that is use to generate groups and filters.
This's fine but how does one decide which columns to consider for Fact table and which columns for Dimension table?
Any help is much appreciated.
Pardon me if this's not the correct place for this question. My first question in the new forum.
Thanks and Regards,
Ranit Biswas

ranitB wrote:
But my main doubt was - what is the criteria to differentiate between columns for Fact tables and Dimension tables? How can one decide upon the design?
Columns of a fact table will often be 'scalar' attributes of the 'fact' data item. A dimension table will often be 'compound' attributes of a 'fact'.
Consider employee information. The EMPLOYEE table can be a fact table. It might have scalar attribute columns such as: DATE_HIRED, STATUS, EMPLOYEE_ID, and so on.
Other related information that can't be specified as a single attribute value would often be stored in a 'dimension' table: ADDRESS, PHONE_NUMBER.
Each address requires several columns to define it: ADDRESS1, ADDRESS2, CITY, STATE, ZIP, COUNTRY. And an employee might have several addresses: WORK_ADDRESS, HOME_ADDRESS. That address info would be stored in a 'dimension' table and only the primary key value of the address record would be stored in the EMPLOYEE 'fact' table.
Same with PHONE_NUMBER. Several columns are required to define a phone number and each employee might have several of them. The dimension tables are used to help 'normalize' the data in the employee 'fact' table.
And that EMPLOYEE table might also be a DIMENSION table for other FACT tables. A DEVELOPER table might have an EMPLOYEE_ID column with a value that points to a 'dimension' row in the EMPLOYEE dimension table.

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