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Data marts

Overview

The Data Marts section is designed for creating and managing ready-to-use datasets that are directly utilized for business analysis and reporting. This section represents the final stage of data preparation, where data engineers assemble data marts, and BI developers connect their tools to them.

A data mart combines measures, dimensions and facts from one or several fact tables into a single dataset for a specific business task. It is defined declaratively: you choose the set of elements, the merge rules, the filters and the aggregation settings, and the system generates the SQL query and, when needed, creates the corresponding view or table in the connected database. Where fact tables describe the physical structure of the data in the source, data marts describe the analytical context — which measures, in which slices and with which restrictions are available for analysis.

What data marts are used for

  • Combining sources — data from several fact tables is merged vertically (UNION) or horizontally on common dimensions (JOIN)
  • Aggregating measures — grouping levels and aggregation methods are set per measure, producing ready analytical slices
  • Filtering data — conditions on measures and dimensions restrict the set of returned records
  • Publishing to a database — a data mart can be created in the target database as a view, a materialized view or a table, for use by external systems without going through DataForge

Access and navigation

  • The "Data Marts" menu item in the product navigation opens the data marts management screen
  • All users can view the list of data marts for projects within their company
  • The list of data marts in a specific project is visible to all users working on that project

Prerequisites

  • A project must be open to view or manage data marts
  • If no project is open, an empty list is displayed with the notification: "To work with data marts, open or create a project"

Project version context

Work with data marts always occurs within the context of a specific project version.

  • Synchronization: Data marts in the open project version are always built based on fact tables from that same project version
  • Data Display: The list displays only data marts belonging to the currently open project version
  • Switching Versions: You can switch project versions. This action simultaneously changes the context on all project screens