There are three basic fact table grains: transaction, periodic snapshot, and accumulating snapshot. In isolated cases, it is useful to add a row effective date, row expiration date, and current row indicator to the fact table, much like you do with type 2 slowly changing dimensions, to capture a timespan when the fact row was effective. Although an unusual pattern, this pattern addresses scenarios such as slowly changing inventory balances where a frequent periodic snapshot would load identical rows with each snapshot.