During testing it would be normal to DISABLE all KPIs except the one currently being developed. In this way the update or process options will only utilize that KPI. As mentioned above the ‘View Statement’ option of the KPI popup menu displays, and allows the cutting of, the statement that will be executed to acquire the KPI information. This statement can be tested in sql*plus or some other environment if problems are encountered.

Snapshot fact tables provide an ‘as at’ view of some part of the business. They always have a time dimension that represents the ‘as at’ date. For example, we may have a weekly or monthly snapshot of our inventory information. Such a snapshot would allow us to see what inventory we had at a particular point in time, and allow us to compare our holdings over time. Snapshots are often used when dealing with people profiles or client/customer profiles to enable us to view the state of our relationship with an entity at a given point in time e.g. to see a monthly trend of a client's outstanding balance.

The creation of snapshot fact tables is very dependent on the method used to create the snapshot. In some cases they may be created in exactly the same way as detail fact tables. Such cases are typically where the OLTP application provides the ‘as at’ state. For example an inventory system may provide a weekly stock take table which is the basis for our snapshot fact table. In such cases the table is created as per a detail fact table, but with additional tailoring around the time dimension. In other situations the snapshot is built from an existing transactional fact table, where all information up to a specific date is summarized or frozen to create the snapshot. In these instances the snapshot can be created as a rollup fact table. Regardless of whether a detail or rollup method is used for the creation of the snapshot table, a significant amount of work will be required to tailor the update procedure to reflect the particular requirements of the snapshot table.