An Automatic Data Warehouse Conceptual Design Approach

makers: structured sheets. As illustrated in Figure 2,
our generic structure defines the fact to be analyzed its
domain, its measures and its analysis dimensions. We
call this structure “2D-F sheet”, acronym for Two-Di-
mensional Fact sheet. To analyze a fact with n (n>2)
dimensions, we may need to use several 2D-F sheets
simultaneously or hide one dimension at a time to add
a new one to the sheet to obtain nD-F sheet. With this
format, the OLAP requirements can be viewed as a
set of 2/nD-F sheets, each defining a fact and two/n
analysis dimensions.
We privileged this input format because it is familiar
and intuitive to decision makers. As illustrated in Figure
1, the requirement acquisition step uses a decisional on-
tology specific to the application domain. This ontology
supplies the basic elements and their multidimensional
semantic relations during the acquisition. It assists the
decisional user in formulating their needs and avoid-
ing naming and relational ambiguities of dimensional
concepts (Nabli, Feki & Gargouri 2006).
Example: Figure 3 depicts a 2D-F sheet that ana-
lyzes the SALE fact of the commercial domain. The
measure Qty depends of the dimensions Client and
Date.
The output of the acquisition step is a set of sheets
defining the facts to be analyzed, their measures
and dimensions, dimensional attributes, etc. These
specified requirements, called semi-structured OLAP
requirements, are the input of the next step: DM
generation.
DM Schema Generation
A DM is subject-oriented and characterized by its mul-
tidimensional schema made up of facts measured along
analysis dimensions. Our approach aims at construct-
ing the DM schema starting from OLAP requirements
specified as a set of 2/nD-F sheets. Each sheet can be
seen as a partial description (i.e., multidimensional
view) of a DM schema. Consequently, for a given
domain, the complete multidimensional schemes of
the DMs are derived from all the sheets specified in
the acquisition step. For this, we have defined a set of
algebraic operators to derive automatically the DM
schema (Nabli, Feki & Gargouri, 2005).
This derivation is done in two complementary
phases according to whether we want to obtain star or
constellation schemes:
1. Generation of star schemes, which groups sheets
referring to the same domain and describing the
same fact. It then merges all the sheets identified
within a group to build a star.

Figure 2. Generic structure of 2D-F sheet

Measures Dimension Hierarchies Hidden Dimensions

Domain name Di D D Dn

« FACT NAME : F » « Dimension Name: D/ hierarchy Name: H»

« Mf, Mf, Mf,…. Mfm »
D.P P.V P.V …..
D.P P. ……. P.Vn
V
…..
D.PN
« Dimension D.P D.P …..
Name: D /
Hierarchy P.V P.V
Name: H»

P.V

P.V P.V
Values of

P.Vi
measures

……. …….

« Restriction Condition »