Data Modeling

How to manage mapping Data Entry
1. Abstract In many cases, mappings are used to control processes. Mostly, these are mappings between entities that cannot be implemented in the standard relationships (hierarchies) for various reasons (e.g. they are not n:1 relationships, or the hierarchical trees would become too large to be useful from a performance…
How to manage BoM explosion
1. Abstract For the production of an item, different materials/ingredients are used. For the production of these materials/ingredients, other materials are required. In the BoM Explosion, all materials of the different levels are written to one level. This article describes an approach within Board – based on a project…
How to structure cubes with slow moving hierarchy
1. Abstract A common challenge in a Board Application is to fulfill the request of tracking changes in hierarchies, which by definition are the current snapshot of a relationship. This article describes how to keep track of the historical situation using a cube and dedicated entities. 2. Context Since a hierarchy in Board…
Missing child in Relationships
Hi, I'm trying to create a dashboard on ESG Net Zero Emission. I've picked only a particular worksheet (1a_RM_&_pack_calc_1.csv) and created entities and built relationships for them, but after running the Data Reader, I'm getting an error on Missing Child in relationships. Thanks & Regards, Kranthikumar Goli.
Data Model object comments
For Data Model objects it would be informative to have to possibility to add comments and notes. For example a Procedure, under “Options” or a new tab, give the developer the possibility to write comments i.e. the purpose of the procedure, when it was last updated, who created/updated it. It could either be one big…
Integrated technical documentation functions
1. What is your idea? The Idea is, to have the possibility to directly document the application within Board. For example: Entity Comment possibility for each Entity technical name Cubes Naming Convention field / technical name possibility to comment (maybe overall and in addition on Cube Version level) Value explanation…
Dataflow common mistakes and best practices
1. Abstract The dataflow is the main action to perform calculations between cubes, it is used in all the processes of the application, therefore it is very important to know how to set up a dataflow in the best possible way, to obtain the correct results with the best performances. 2. Context In this article, we will first…
Best Practices in Writing Procedures
1. Abstract Most probably every Board application will have procedures to cover interactivity by the user (e.g., navigation), perform calculations (e.g., processing plan data) or run other backend processes like creating a backup. To provide the best maintainability, quality, and robustness, some guidelines should be…
Impact Analysis update of information
Good morning, Our team would like to know if there's a method to update the impact analysis information. We have verified some cases where a name of a procedure or a screen is changed manually but this is not reflected in the impact analysis, which still shows the previous name. We believe having seen this for other…
Partitioned cubes and sparsity
When performance problems occur, one bottleneck is backing up the data on the hard drive. We can counter this by setting the saving policy. Depending on the selected setting, it is a trade-off between performance and security. With my suggestion I would like to defuse this tension. With the SQL-Server from Microsoft it is…
How to use Unbalanced Hierarchy
1. Abstract A common requirement when structuring hierarchies in Board is to create an unbalanced hierarchy, Board facilitates this with a dedicated feature “Unbalanced Hierarchies”. 2. Context Unbalanced hierarchies can be a very useful addition to a Board solution; however, how to define and maintain them requires some…
Resize Columns in ETL Tab of Data Readers
Maybe we are unique in having a field that is very long, but having the ability to manually change the width of columns in the ETL would be fantastic. We have different combinations of materials that can go into our goods, all depending on what has been ordered. In order to make this happen and price things appropriately,…
metadata-driven modeling with BAML (Board Application Markup Language)
This feature is inspired by BIML (Business Intelligence Markup Language). To develop a board-application you don’t need coding skills. That is really great for beginners! To develop a board-application is mostly to create or alter meta-data. For example create a new entity. Give them a name, group, id length, desc length…
Custom Time Entities – Generic Month example
1. Abstract Custom time entities are a subset within the time range section in the BOARD database. They are mainly adopted during the application to intercept those time analyses which cannot be implemented with only the standard time function available by default in the BOARD data model. Since they are limited in BOARD,…
Entity Definition - Concatenation or not
1. Abstract In complex applications, we often face a situation where we have too many dimensions structuring the cubes. In such cases, it is necessary to evaluate the impacts on the usability of the application, and to measure the risks on the overall performance. In case of performance issues, one of the possible…
The Backup Mentality
1. Abstract Each Board environment should foresee an appropriate backup policy for the existing Data Models, should it be a development, sandbox or production environment. Such backup policy must always be present and it should be developed on top of the standard backup policies implemented by the cloud team for disaster…
How to create a workflow process
1. Abstract Many organizations would like to automate approval processes and workflows through Board software in order to create a reliable and standardized series of steps which guide users to ensure work is completed and approved the same way. In Board, a workflow intended as an approval process can be designed through a…
Auto Max Item Number
1. Abstract One of the initial steps of the development phase in a project is the creation of entities. The most important property of an Entity is the Max Item Number which needs to be defined carefully, considering the effect it has on the performance of the application. 2. Context One of the entities’ most important…
Capsule Procedure vs Datamodel Procedure
1. Abstract While developers are facing procedure creation, they need to understand when it is appropriate to use data model procedures vs Capsule procedures. 2. Context As developers, it is our responsibility to always keep the long-term maintainability of our solutions in mind. Procedures must be developed in a…
Audit/Record changes to procedures / lines
As an on-going maintenance task, we frequently have to modify procedures (add more lines, modify existing, disable lines, etc.) It would be nice if (upon saving) the username/timestamp and action is recorded against each line (e.g. added, disabled, modified, etc). This can be used, in part as a version control mechanism.…
Application Navigation Design
1. Abstract Navigation is "the act of moving between screens of an application to complete tasks". It is about managing the path that the users can follow when using an application and therefore it involves defining the different navigation steps (based on the level of flexibility required) and eventually combining them…
Sparsity
1. Abstract During the creation of a new cube, the question is usually about whether dimensions should be dense or sparse. A cube can store a value for any combination of its dimension’s members: for example, a three-dimensional Cube (e.g. month, product and customer), has a cell for any triplet. If every customer…
Default Database Security Profile while creating a new DB - ADMIN
Dear Team, Currently when we create a Database, it is setup without any Security Profile. Could we please look to add the step of adding a default Database Security Profile - ADMIN at the time of creating a new Data model. We could have this done behind the scenes as soon as the developer finishes setting up the time range…
Managing high-volume entities
1. Abstract In complex environments, it happens to manage elements with a high volume. In such cases, it is crucial to identify the possible cascading effects on the rest of the model and what measures need to be taken when loading entities with millions of elements and evaluate in advance the possible impact on cubes,…
Cube definition insights
1. Abstract Insights on cubes definition and options. 2. Context The following best practices are applicable every time a new cube needs to be created in a data model. 3. Content Some limitations and constraints but also tips and guidelines from best practices and real-life cases. Cube’s dimensions can range from one to…
How to define and manage the time range
1. Abstract In Board, the definition of the time range becomes very important because it guides the data that will be loaded and made visible to the end user. When setting the time interval, there are some considerations to bear in mind to avoid running into unpleasant situations during the development phase, where the…
Naming Convention
1. Abstract The following document is intended to suggest and give concrete examples of the nomenclature to be used during the development of the back end and front end of a Board solution. The aim is to have a consistent and organized nomenclature that led to a maintainable solution that can be easily consulted in the…
Extract all Cubes – Filter Cubes by Entity
Description In Board it is possible to extract all cubes with procedure step “Extract all cubes”. It would be great to have an option to filter the cubes by entity or list of entities. For example I have a database with 1500 cubes. 600 cubes use the entity Planversion. I like to extract only all cubes with this entity. Use…
How to Change the Entity Order
1. Abstract An Entity sort is a parameter set when you create the Entity, which can be updated during the development phase. It may be necessary to evaluate the addition of new members or re-evaluate the order of the elements. In this case, it’s suggested to use a dynamic sorting mechanism based on a Cube and, in other…

Data Modeling

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