enhance dataflow understanding for cubes' structures: new tab in dataflow layout
1. What is your idea?
the idea is to help the developer who designs dataflows in procedures and help him understanding at a glance which entity structures from both factor and target cubes are involved in one dataflow. This understanding is very important for designing and maintening dataflows.
- I would wish a new tab in the dataflow window, called "compare structure" for example.
- clicking on this tab would then show 1 line by cube (using the same letters a,b,c as in the Data tab).
- on each line, I would find (from left to right)
- letter (a, b, c...)
- Name of cube
- Version used
- Entities structuring the version of the cube, in a manner that one given entity (or its parents or its children entities) is shown has the same "vertical alignment" across all lines of this tab, thus helping the visual comparison between lines. This imply that BOARD dynamically checks the entities used by the involved cubes to show them in that manner
- example of 3 lines :
- a | BDG - Sales Qty | V001| day - product - customer - version
- b | BDG - Sales Price| V001 | month - product - - version
- c | BDG - Sales EUR| V001 | day - product - customer - version - legal entity
- If I dream a bit more, the density would be also indicated for each entity, e.g. day(D) - product (S) - customer (S) - version (D)
In my example above (d.),
- day and month are aligned vertically because they belong to the same hierarchy
- there is an empty space in the second line after product, because this cube has no entity of the customer hierarchy
/* Addendum May 4th*/
Actually, the search engine in BOARD windows client shows something in the direction of this idea, unfortunately the structure of a cube appears only after a mouseover, thus preventing seeing the structure of several cubes at the same time. I wrote a fictive example in red of what I would wish in a dataflow setting window:
/* Addendum May 4th*/
I admit that this idea is more a nice-to-have than a solving-issue-idea.
2. What specific problem are you trying to find a solution to, or what new scenario would this idea respond to?
The specific problem is for anyone designing a dataflow, or looking on a dataflow designed by someone else.
When factor and target cubes have different structure, you must be able to compare them to understand the dataflow and avoid easy mistakes.
Currently, the information is already here (clicking on single blocks displays its entity structure) but not put in comparison across the blocks.
3. What workaround have you found and used so far (if any)?
For my part, I write on a paper one line by cube (target cube at the end), and on each line I write the entity structuring the cube to be able to compare them between cubes and check if everything is correct and logical.
Example with a very easy dataflow c = a * b:
| cube name | Version# | Entity1 | Entity2 | Entity3 | Entity4 | Entity5 | ....... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a:BDG-Sales Qty | 1 | day | product | customer | version | ||
| b:BDG-Sales Price | 1 | month | product | version | |||
| c:BDG-Sales EUR | 1 | day | product | customer | version | legal entity |