The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling

Chapter 12. Education

We step into the world of an educational institution in this chapter. We'll first look at the applicant student pipeline as an accumulating snapshot. When we introduced the accumulating snapshot-grained fact table in Chapter 5, we used an order fulfillment pipeline to illustrate the concept. In this chapter, rather than watching orders move through various states prior to completion, the accumulating snapshot is used to monitor prospective student applicants as they move through standard admissions milestones. The other primary concept discussed in this chapter is the factless fact table. We'll explore several case study illustrations drawn from education to further elaborate on these special fact tables, and we will discuss the analysis of events that didn't occur.

Note

Chapter 12 discusses the following concepts:

• Admission's applicant tracking as an accumulating snapshot

• Factless fact table for student registration and facilities management data

• Handling of nonexistent events, including promotion events from the retail industry

University Case Study

In this chapter we'll pretend that we work for a university, college, or other type of educational institution. Traditionally, there has been less focus on revenue and profit in this arena, but with the ever-escalating costs and competition associated with higher education, universities and colleges are very interested in attracting and retaining high-quality students. In fact, there's a strong interest in understanding ...