MICROSTRATEGY TUTORIALS

Facts
A fact has two characteristics: it is numerical and
aggregatable. Examples of facts include revenue, inventory,
and account balances.
There are some cases where a fact is not numerical or
aggregatable, but these are rare.
Facts are stored in the data warehouse in fact tables. These
fact tables comprise different columns, each cell representing
a specific piece of information. Metrics, which are business
measures, are created from this information.
SQL aggregations, such as SUM and AVG, are performed on
the facts in the database tables. For example, in the following
SQL statement, the ORDER_AMT column in the warehouse
might correspond to the Order Amount fact in the
MicroStrategy environment:
SELECTsum(a21.ORDER_AMT) REGION
FROM ORDER_FACTa21
JOIN LU_EMPLOYEEa22
ON (a21.EMP_ID = a22.EMP_ID)
WHERE a22.CALL_CTR_ID in (5, 9, 12)
In this example, ORDER_AMT is the fact, whereas
sum(a21.ORDER_AMT) represents a metric.