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Learning Outcomes:

After completing this section, you will be able to:

• Create a View using a data source
• Join tables 
• Choose columns to be available for analysis
• Construct calculated fields and drill-down hierarchies
• Format fields

Example Use Case:

For the purposes of this “Getting Started Journey”, we are using an example involving a fictional sports training business called “Ski Team”. Their data contains information relating to revenue from various ski camps and the athletes who have attended. 

Ski Team would like to analyze their overall financial situation. They want to break down the invoiced amount by dimensions such as customer regions, demographics and gender. They are also interested in understanding which ski camps are bringing in the most revenue this year and how that compares to revenue brought in last year.

About Views:

A View is a translation layer used by Yellowfin to hide the complexity of database structures from Report writers. The View is used to define which columns in your database you wish to make available for building Reports. These fields may come from multiple tables and therefore will require joins (the business logic that links rows in different tables together).

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Note:If you are not already on the Browse page, please navigate there. (Burger Bun -> Browse All) 

Create a Multiple Table View:

• Click Create and select “View”.

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Alt text: User selects the data source and View Type.

Creating the Model:

In the Model step, you will drag in the desired tables onto the model canvas, join the tables, and select columns to be available for Reporting and analysis. 

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Continue on to learn how to edit the format of columns, create hierarchies, and make further adjustments to prepare the View for use.

Preparing the View:

• Click on the Prepare section. 

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Note: The Auto Refresh option can be toggled off. This can be useful when making changes to multiple columns on databases with large data volumes.

Formatting Basic Fields:

In this section, you will edit the formatting of multiple columns to make the data more readable and contextually appropriate. For example, you will be making changes such as adding currency prefixes to monetary values, adjusting the number of decimal places, and defining the default aggregations of metrics.

Invoiced Amount:      

• Open the “Metrics” folder on the left hand side. 
• Right click on the “INVOICEDAMOUNT” column. 
• Select “Edit Format” from the dropdown menu.

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Alt text: User edits the format of the “Invoiced Amount” field.

Camp Rating:

Next, click on “CAMPRATING”.

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For the following five fields, you will just be changing the titles of the columns to title case for readability. There is no need to make any additional adjustments to these fields.

Camp Region:

• Change the Display Name of “CAMPREGION” to “Camp Region”.

Camp Demographic:

• Change the Display Name of “CAMPDEMOGRAPHIC” to “Camp Demographic”.

Start Date:

• Change the Display Name of “STARTDATE” to “Start Date”.

End Date:

• Change the Display Name of “ENDDATE” to “End Date”.

Camp Name:

• Change the Display Name of “CAMPDESCRIPTION” to “Camp Name”.

Note: See more information on field settings.

Reference Codes:

Reference Codes allow for more meaningful values in Reports with numeric- and text-based data by mapping a code to a descriptive value. For example, a text field that contains 'Y' or 'N' could be mapped to display 'Yes' or 'No'. 

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For the “Demographic” field, you will use an already existing Reference Code instead of creating your own.

Demographic:

• Change the Display Name of “DEMOGRAPHIC” to “Demographic”.
• Change the Format to “Reference Code”.
• Select “Demographic” as the Reference Type.

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Alt text: User applies the
“Demographic” Reference Code to the “Demographic” field.

Country:

• Change the Display Name of “ISOCODE” to “Country”.
• Change the Format to “Reference Code”.
• Select “Country” as the Reference Type.

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Note: See additional information on Reference Codes.

Create a Drill Down Hierarchy:

Drill Down Hierarchies allow users to drill down within a dimensional hierarchy by limiting the result set as they move from one level to the next. For example, drill from Year (2022) to Month (August), and so on.

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Note: You can create a Drill Down Hierarchy with more than two fields. In this case, if there was a “City” field, you could drill further from “Region” to “Country” to “City”.

Region to Country:

• Change the Display Name of “REGION” to “Region”.
• Close out of the Field Settings window.
• Right click on the “Region” field. Hover on Drill To in the dropdown menu. Select “Country”.

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Note: You can create date hierarchies based on a single date field in your data source. They are ideal for use with time series charts, as they use granularity to dictate day/week/month/year. See more information on date hierarchies.

Change the Date Format:

For Date Field Types, you can specify the format to be applied. This will not alter the raw data, just change the way it is displayed.

In this case, you want to show the month and year of the date, with one row per month per year.

Month, Year:

• Change the Display Name of “MONTHDATE” to “Month, Year”.
• The Format should be set to “Date”.
• Select “Other” as the Date Format.
  This way, you’ll be able to build your own custom date format.
• Enter “MMM, yy” as the Custom Date Format.

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Note: See more information on date formatting.

Create Calculated Fields:

Calculated fields let you create new fields based on existing fields. You can use simple calculations, pre-defined functions, or freehand SQL, depending on the complexity of the calculation. When created in the View, they will appear as a pre-existing column, saving the user from having to recreate the field in multiple Reports. Calculated fields can also be useful when used in conjunction with Guided NLQ,  providing pre-calculated fields for your users to include in their queries. 

Athlete Counter:

First, create an “Athlete Counter” to easily aggregate the number of athletes by camp or region. For example, when building a Report with the “Region” and “Athlete Counter” fields, the Report should show the number of athletes from each region. 

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• Close the Field Settings window. 

Camp Days:

In addition, create a field to understand how many days the athletes participate in the camps, on average. You will use a Calculated Field to find the number of days between the Start and End date of an athlete’s time at a specific camp.

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Note: See another example creating a calculated field.

Create a Filter Group:

There may be cases where multiple Reports will need the same set of filters, either pre-defined, or user-prompt. To save you adding and adjusting filters in each individual Report, you can create filter groups in the View. 

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Next, you will move all the fields into relevant folders.

Organize the View:

Assigning fields to relevant folders lets you organize your fields in a way that is logical for Report writers. You can group fields differently than how the columns were grouped in the table structure in the data source.

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Alt text: User deletes the “Metrics” and “Dimensions” folders and reorders the remaining folders.

Publish the View:

• Click Publish at the top right corner of the screen.
• Enter “Getting Started View” as the View Title.
• Place it in your “Getting Started with Yellowfin” folder and the “Content” sub-folder.

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You are now ready to create Reports and Charts using your new View.

View

Further information

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