Can a Universe have more than 1 fact Table?

Yes. Typically a universe can have more than 1 fact table and numerous aggregated tables.


What is Aggregate Awareness?

Aggregate awareness is a feature of DESIGNER that makes use of aggregate tables in a database. These are tables that contain pre-calculated data. The purpose of these tables is to enhance the performance of SQL transactions; they are thus used to speed up the execution of queries.

Of course, the reliability of the technique depends on the accuracy of the aggregate tables. In fact, they must be refreshed at the same time as all fact tables. A universe that is “aggregate aware” has one or more aggregate objects with alternative definitions based on these tables. These definitions correspond to levels of aggregation. For example, a Profit object can be aggregated by month, by

quarter, or by year. Queries built from such a universe return information aggregated to the appropriate level at optimal speed.

Aggregate awareness is a feature that makes use of predefined aggregate tables to enhance the performance of SQL transactions. It is used to improve the speed by which aggregates are calculated in the database.

To set up aggregate awareness in a universe, you define one or more objects using the @Aggregate_Aware function.


The syntax for this function is as follows:

@Aggregate_Aware(aggregate_table_1, ... aggregate_table_n)

The arguments of this function are all the names of alternative aggregate tables. When you formulate the syntax, you should be aware of the order of the arguments. The precedence is from left to right; this means that BusinessObjects determines the aggregate to use beginning from the leftmost argument.

As a general rule, you should enter the most aggregate table as the first argument, the next most aggregate table as the second argument, and so on. You must then use the Aggregate Navigation editor to set up a list of incompatible objects and/or incompatible conditions for each aggregate table in your universe.

These are the components that cannot be used with an aggregate table. You can either set up these lists manually, or cause the list of objects to be detected by Designer.