Adding an entity as block in layout

Neha Gupta

Hi all,

 

I've to add multiple entities as blocks because using them in axis is exceeding the limit of around 2 billion rows, which is causing layouts to not load. Dataview has data for 24 months and when I'm adding entity as block, the same is shown separately for each month. I heard we can use 'Detail by' to show it only once, but not able to make it work. Could anyone please help me out? Also do we've any documentation on this, so I can refer?

 

Thanks

Unknown

Hi Neha,

 

Think of "Detail By" as over-riding (for the particular block) whatever you have set in the "Row" axis of the layout.  You could have "Month" in the axis, but if you set "Detail By" to "Year" (for example) for a particular block, then you would see the value of that block by "Year", with any other blocks (that don't have "Detail By" set) shown by "Month".

 

In your particular case, though, you want a certain block (the "Product Category" Entity) to appear only once, but the other blocks to appear by "Month".  The simplest way to do this is to not put any Entity on the "Row" axis, and then use "Detail By" / "Month" on the other blocks in the layout.  (Note that Board requires the first block in a layout to be a cube, not an entity, so you'd need to just put a cube as block "a" (make sure it's hidden), then your entity as block "b", then followed by the cube that has your values as block "c" (with "Detail By" / "Month").

 

Try this first, and see how you go.  Sometimes you might want to do a similar thing, but you actually want multiple entities on the "Row" axis (eg. "Year" and "Month") - there's a different trick when this is the case, but I don't want to confuse you too much just yet.  Let me know how you go with the above suggestion first, and if it achieves your desired result.

 

Cheers,

Craig Parris

Neha Gupta

Thanks Craig. The solution did work  .

However, I'm facing one more issue. I've to use 2 entities which aren't part of hierarchy, with members count 400,000 and 40,000. Adding just these 2 entities, is exceeding the limit of 2 billion possible rows (400,000 * 40000 = 16 billion). Is there a way to make it work, bypassing the limit?

Another ques: If I use time entity in layout, does the number of selected members are used to calculate the 2 billion mark?

Say I select 24 months, will the above number (16 billion) be further multiplied by 24?

 

Thanks

Unknown

Hi Neha,

 

To be honest, I just can't envisage how a data-view with 400,000 x 40,000 entity members on row is even practical.  Do you actually have users who want to see a data-view with this total number of rows?  For me, as a consultant, if I was faced with this I would be asking the customer:
- do users have only a specific sub-set of the entity members that they are concerned with?

- could database security, or some kind of configuration matrix be used to determine which combinations display for any particular user?

- alternatively, are there logical groups that could be added to display the data at a more aggregated level, with users having the ability to drill-down to lower-level detail when needed (which would only be a small sub-set of the total entity members)?

 

You're not going to be able to get around any physical limitation on the number of rows that Board can display ... and, as I say, even if you could, would you really want to?  Just because you CAN do something, doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD do something

Neha Gupta

Hi Craig,

The 2 entities are following:

Client: 400,000

SKUs: 40,000

 

The report is viewed in flattening mode, with maximum clients purchasing only one SKU (but could be more than one). Although the possible rows are 16 billion but actual is less than 500k. Users do apply filters to look for specific data but I can't bound them. So looking for a solution here.

 

Thanks

Sebastian Gurt

Hi Neha Gupta,

 

you should try to use the "BOARD-way" to solve this. What you are trying is to recreate excel behaviour. So you should think about using drill down or drill to screen and not combine huge dimensions by row. A dataview by client and a drill down by SKU (or the other way around - depending on the way the users interact with the data) plus selectors and pagers should do the trick.

 

BR

 

Sebastian