Groups many minor attributes with only a handful of possible values, flags and statuses for instance, into a single table keyed by a surrogate key. The fact table then carries one key in place of many.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Junk dimension in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- VALUES
Returns in DAX the distinct column values, or table rows, still visible after filters are applied, sometimes with an extra blank entry. CALCULATE often takes the result as a table filter.
- Event
Table in Log Analytics where entries from Windows event logs are kept.
- Surrogate key
Instead of the source system's natural key, a generated value such as an identity column (
BIGINT GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY). Values are unique, gaps are possible, and an identity column rules out concurrent transactions on the table. - Fact table
Stores the numbers captured when business events happen, like what each sale brought in; an analytical model rolls these up into measures and slices them by dimensions.
- Index field attributes
Settings applied to each field in an Azure AI Search index:
searchablefor full text,retrievableto return it,filterablefor exact-match$filter,sortable,facetablefor counts, andkeyfor the unique document ID.