Our wide tables (also called One Big Table) are built from our dimensions and facts and can be thought of as flattened stars. We query the fact table selecting all columns and join onto all necessary dimensions. We recommend wide tables be used with BI platforms such as Google Looker Studio and Tableau. Below is a list of wide tables we have created in the past. We often start with these when building a new data warehouse and naturally move in different directions depending on the needs of the organization.
MartTable
Assessmentwide_student_assessment
Attendancewide_student_school_attendance
Attendancewide_student_section_attendance
Disciplinewide_student_incident
Enrollmentwide_student_section
Enrollmentwide_student_school
Gradeswide_student_assignment
Gradeswide_student_category_grade
Gradeswide_student_grade
Wide datasets contain all the information needed for a specific analysis in a single table. Continuing with our Student School Attendance example, you will find measures on the right side of the table and dimensions on the left side. The table below shows a wide table for student school attendance for you visual learnes. Our wide table such as this one may have 30 - 40 columns, we are only showing a subset here.
student_last_namestudent_first_nameschool_yearcalendar_dateattendance_codeattendance_durationabsence_duration
PotterHarry20252024-09-09P10
PotterHarry20252024-09-10P10
PotterHarry20252024-09-11EA01
PotterHarry20252024-09-12P10
PotterHarry20252024-09-13T10