Basic Concepts

BI Gateway Model includes the following basic concepts:

Backfill

While configuring a refresh rate for a measure, you can provide a start date and time to start collecting data from the data source and populate the measure. You can provide a start date and time prior to the measure deployment date. The process of populating the measure for a period prior to the deployment date is called as back-filling.

BI Gateway model

A BI Gateway model is a formal representation of the data sources, dimensions, and measures that are collectively called BI Gateway objects. The BI Gateway model also represents the relationships and configurations of the BI Gateway objects.

Context

A context is established by relating a measure to a dimension. A context link provides a context for time-slicing. Time-slices obtained from time defining dimensions can have an associated context.

Dimension

A dimension is a structure that provides context to measures. Each dimension stores related items of data. A dimension stores contextual data. Dimension allows you to filter, group, and label measure data.

Data source

Data sources are the external source systems to which you can map the dimensions and measures in the BI Gateway model. Data sources are the BI Gateway objects in the BI Gateway model. You configure the data source objects to provide connection information to the external data source systems.

Measure

A measure is a group of calculations that shares the same context. A measure consists of calculations for each source system, time period, and for each unique combination of dimension value.