Creating Views
Views are a way to view data from one or many tables and modify how the tables are displayed.
- Using Views, you can join multiple tables together based on related columns
- Creating a View over a table allows you to hide columns, rename columns, and change column ordering
- To share a View, the recipient must have access to all tables used in that View
- To share a View, the sharer must be an owner of all Assets used in that View
- You can use Models to save time building Views
- You can't edit table data from a View
- You can't use a View to build another View at this time
Note: If you delete a source table from a view that view will break and no longer be accessible. If you give a user access to a view, then remove their access to a source table, they will not be able to access the view.
View Example
Imagine you need to provide someone with a list showing all employees and the addresses of the offices they work in. You have an Employees table and an Offices table.
- The Employees table contains information about the employees, including the ID of the office each employee works in.
- The Offices table contains information about each office, including office name and address.
You can easily combine these two tables using a View, by defining the relationship: Office Name on the Employees Table = Office Name on the Offices Table.
In the below example, these tables will be used. Feel free to download them and follow along. When you upload them, make sure to set the ID columns as integer column types
1. Go to where you want to save your View in the Assets Dashboard
First, you'll want to navigate to where you'll want the new View to be stored in your folders in the Assets Dashboard. You can always change an asset's location later, by selecting the asset and click the Edit -> Location button.
2. Select New->View
Click the "New" button in the top right of the Asset Nav window and select View from the dropdown.
First, you'll want to and Tables or Models to include in your View. Selecting a Model will bring all tables and relationships included in that model into your View. See Creating Models for more information on Models.
Select the Assets you want to include in your View using the folder navigation panel on the left. Click the Add Assets to Selection button to add assets to your view.
Click the Step 2: Define Relationships button or tab to move onto the next step.
You can create a View that only contains 1 Table. This can enable the sharing Table data with other users while restricting column visibility, changing column names, and column ordering.
Next, you need to define the related columns between the Tables in your View.
This allows you to combine the data between two separate tables into one.
- Create new relationships by clicking the New button.Related columns must be the same column type.
- The guide in lower left will tell you which Tables you've selected have relationships.All Tables must be related to each other.
- Test your View by clicking the Test View button at the bottom of the page.You'll be able to adjust column names, visability, and ordering in the next step.
- Click the Step 3: Customize Display button or tab to move onto the final step.
The final step in creating a View is customizing the display.
- Select the columns you want to be visible.
- Rename columns. By default, columns are TableName.ColumnName.
- Test your View by clicking the Test View button at the bottom of the page.
- Name your View and give it a description.
- Access your view from the Assets Dashboard
Hidden columns will be available for column filtering when sharing your View to other users.
Users will never be able to see hidden columns, but you can use them to dictate what rows are visible through filtering. This is handy if you are using IDs to connect tables, but don't want users seeing the ID columns.
