Re: Is Discoverer a viable tool for Star Schema?

In article <AiRP3.940$SS6.38232_at_dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net>,   "Craig Ledbetter" <craigl_at_gte.net> wrote:
> Create an item class on Customer and use the "drill to detail"
function when
> looking at the Sales by Customer report to get to Orders for that
customer.

So are you saying that the two pieces of information cannot be viewed on the same report/screen? For example, start with showing Customer Sales, then drill down to Customer Orders? That's not really an option - - what if you want to see the difference between the two values?

> This is a dynamic way of getting the same information.
> However, if the Sales & Orders by Time and Customer is a really useful
> report, it deserves its own Custom folder. Access to useful
information by
> the end-user is the goal. With Discoverer you have to be smart in the
> administrative tool to allow ease of use in the end-user environment.

So that means that Discoverer equates a "Folder" with a report or a table. It doesn't equate it to a group of objects which can be combined with other objects.

This makes the product inflexible. Any semi-complex data mart will contain 5-6 fact tables and 5-6 dimensions. And there will be dimensions common to each fact table. What Discoverer forces you to do is to have multiple "versions" of each fact table, one for each combination that you want to do.

So if I have a DM with Sales, Orders, Forecasts, Payroll, Expenses as facts, and Customer, Distribution Center, and Sales Force as dimensions, I'd have to have folders like:

Customer -- Distribution Center -- Sales -- Expenses Customer -- Sales Force -- Orders -- Sales Sales Force -- Distribution Center -- Expenses -- Payroll

etc.

As you can see, I have multiple places to choose Customer from, and if I want just Customer -- Sales, each of these folders will automatically join other dimensions in because they're based on a view.

This is barely better than writing custom reports using COBOL -- each time someone wants a new combination, you have to create a new view.

I don't see why Oracle says that Discoverer is a good tool for Data Marts. It is only good to get information from a single fact table (with related dimensions). At the slightest hint of analysis, the tool fails.

Ralph
slater_at_rpi.edu

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Before you buy. Received on Wed Oct 27 1999 - 15:26:13 CEST