In SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) data warehousing and OLAP/UDM solutions, a fact is a single record, usually representing a business transaction, at the lowest level of granularity recorded in the database. Facts are composed of dimension keys and measures; the dimension keys reference specific members from dimensions involved in the transaction recorded by the fact, and the measures assign values to the fact. For example, in a data warehouse of sales transactions, a fact record would have dimension keys for the customer, seller, product, time, and location of the transaction, and measures for the number of products sold, and the amount of money paid.
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Richard Mueller edited Revision 7. Comment: Removed (en-US) from title
Matt Burr MSFT edited Original. Comment: Small edits. Nothing major.
Fernando Lugão Veltem edited Revision 3. Comment: added portuguese version