An Automatic Data Warehouse Conceptual Design Approach
nected via a composition link to the class Ci-1, of REFERENCES
the same hierarchy, if any.
Rule 4: Transforming facts into associations −
A fact table is transformed into an association
linking the finest level classes derived from its
dimensions. Measures of the fact become attri-
butes of the association.
Note that the above four rules apply only to non-date
dimension. Rule 5 deals with the date dimension:
Rule 5: Transforming date dimension − A date
dimension is integrated into each of its related
fact classes as a full-date, i.e., detailed date.
FUTURE TRENDS
We are currently verifying the completeness of the set
of DM to DW schema transformation rules; the proof
proceeds by induction on the schema structure. In addi-
tion, we are examining how to adapt our approach to a
model-driven development approach like MDA (Model
Driven Architecture) of OMG (OMG, 2002) (Mazón
& Trujillo, 2007). Such an alignment will allow us to
formalize better the transformations among the models.
In addition, it can benefit from the decisional ontology
as a starting Computation Independent Model (CIM).
The decisional end-user instantiates the decisional ele-
ments from this ontology in order to formulate their
particular requirements as nD-F; thus, the nD-F can
be regarded as a form of Platform Independent Model
(PIM). This later can be transformed, through our set
of transformations, to derive a DM/DW schema.
CONCLUSION
This work lays the grounds for an automatic, system-
atic approach for the generation of data mart and data
warehouse conceptual schemes. It proposed a standard
format for OLAP requirement acquisition, and de-
fined an algorithm that transforms automatically the
OLAP requirements into multidimensional data mart
schemes. In addition, it outlined the mapping rules
between the data sources and the data marts schemes.
Finally, it defined a set of unification rules that merge
the generated data mart schemes to construct the data
warehouse schema.

Bellatreche, L., & Boukhalfa, K. (2005). An evolution-
ary approach to schema partitioning selection in a data
warehouse. 7th International Conference on Data Ware-
housing and Knowledge Discovery. Springer-Verlag.
Bonifati, A., Cattaneo, F., Ceri, S., Fuggetta, A., &
Paraboschi, S. (2001). Designing data marts for data
warehouses. ACM Transactions on Software Engineer-
ing Methodology.
Feki, J. (2004). Vers une conception automatisée des
entrepôts de données : Modélisation des besoins OLAP
et génération de schémas multidimensionnels. 8th
Maghrebian Conference on Software Engineering and
Artificial Intelligence, 473-485, Tunisia.
Feki, J., Majdoubi, J., & Gargouri, F. (2005). A two-
phase approach for multidimensional schemes integra-
tion. The 7th International Conference on Software
Engineering and Knowledge Engineering.
Golfarelli, M., Maio, D., & Rizzi, S. (1998). Conceptual
design of data warehouses from E/R schemes. Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences.
Golfarelli, M., Rizzi, S., & Saltarelli, E. (2002). Index
selection for data warehousing. Design and Manage-
ment of Data Warehouses, 33-42.
Hahn, K., Sapia, C., & Blaschka, M. (2000). auto-
matically generating OLAP schemes from conceptual
graphical models. International Workshop on Data
Warehousing and OLAP.
Hüsemann, B., Lechtenbörger J. & Vossen G. (2000).
Conceptual data warehouse design. Design and Man-
agement of Data Warehouses, Sweden.
Inmon, W. H. (2002). Building the data warehouse.
Wiley Press.
Kimball, R. (1996). The data warehouse toolkit. New
York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Marotta, A., & Ruggia, R. (2002). Data warehouse de-
sign: A schema-transformation approach. International
Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society,
153-161, Chile.
Mazón, J.-N., & Trujillo, J. (2007). An MDA approach
for the development of data warehouses. Decision
Support Systems.