Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Online analytical processing, or OLAP, is an approach to quickly answer multi-dimensional analytical queries. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational reporting and data mining. The typical applications of OLAP are in business reporting for sales, marketing, management reporting, business process management, budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting and similar areas. The term OLAP was created as a slight modification of the traditional database term OLTP.