Schema

A schema is a collection of tables that provide the underlying structure for a dashboard. This structure must be created before dashboards and Insights can be designed.

The Schemas Page

To begin, you should be familiar with the “Schemas” page, displaying a list of all the existing schemas. In the Schemas page, you can sort any column (except for the “Permission” column) by clicking on the header of that column. A small arrow appears next to the header indicating the sorting column and direction (ascending/descending).

The “Schema” column contains the name of each schema. Select directly on a schema name in this column to view or modify its definition, including tables, columns, filters, and joins.

The “Status” column indicates whether the schema’s data is loaded and current. If an exclamation mark appears in this column, it means that the schema’s data needs to be loaded.

The “Permission” column lists the permission granted for the logged-in user for each schema.

The “Owner” column contains the name of the owner for each of the listed schemas.

“Last Load Status” displays the timestamp from the most recent data load, or a message indicating that the data needs to be loaded. To view a schema loading activities and type (full/incremental), hover over that schema and click Details.

“Data Size” indicates the size of the schema including all of its data and measures after the data is loaded into the schema.

“Total Data Size” in the header bar indicates memory consumed by all schemas for which data is loaded.

Use the checkboxes to access the schema settings, export, or delete one or more schemas. When you check a box, the “Actions” menu appears in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Use the ”+” symbol to add a new schema.

The Schema Definition Page

Navigate to the Schema Definition page by clicking on a schema name. Here, you can view statistics about the schema and access its tables. Each table is represented with an icon representing its data source. For example, if the table uses a CSV file as its data source, it will show an icon with “CSV” on it. If the data source is an SQL, it will show “SQL”. If the table is multi-source, the icon will show “Multi”, etc. To access a table definition, select the down arrow corresponding to that table and select “Table Details”.

Create a New Schema from the Schemas Page

  1. Go to the “Schemas” page.
  2. Select + New in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
  3. Select “Create Schema”. The “New Schema” dialogue box appears.
  4. Enter a schema name and description.
  5. Select Create.
  6. Start creating tables in the schema:

    1. Specify the data source type to start adding tables to your schema.
    2. Select a data source.
    3. Create a query and select Update Columns.
  7. Once the schema has been created, customize its tables and columns.

Edit schema settings from the schema page

You can edit a schema settings from the “Schemas” tab in the “Schema” page. To access it:

  1. Navigate to the “Schemas” tab in the “Schema” page.
  2. Select the checkbox corresponding to one schema only to edit its settings. The “Actions” menu appears in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Note that selecting more than one checkbox affects the available items in the “Actions” menu.
  3. Select “Actions” in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
  4. Select “Schema settings” from the drop-down menu. The “Schema Settings” window appears.
  5. Select Save Changes.

Edit schema settings from the schema definition page

You can edit a schema settings in the definition page of that schema:

  1. Navigate to the “Schemas” tab in the “Schema” section.
  2. Select any schema to access its definition, by clicking on its row, not the checkbox. The schema definition page opens.
  3. Select the gear (settings) icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The “Schema Settings” window appears.
  4. Select Save Changes.

Add or Edit a schema description

In the schema settings window, you can add/edit a schema description.

To add or edit a schema description, simply use the following steps:

  1. Select the “Settings” tab.
  2. Add or edit the schema description in the “Schema Description” field.
  3. Select Save Changes.

Share a schema with other users and groups

In the schema settings window, you can easily share a schema with other users and groups, and set their permissions on that schema.

To share a schema with other users and groups, simply use the following steps:

  1. Select the “Sharing” tab.
  2. Select ”+” in the upper right-hand corner to add users/groups. The search bar appears with the least privilege (i.e. “Can View”) selected by default.
  3. Enter a name, email address, or group name to share the schema with. Once you start typing, suggestions will be displayed to help you choose.
  4. Select a user/group. The permissions menu appears.
  5. Select a permission for the selected user/group.
  6. Select Save. Note that each permission includes the one on top of it (e.g. if a user has the “Can Share” permission, they will automatically have the “Can View” permission). The sharing wizard closes, returning back to the “Shared With” list, showing all the users along with their permission level.
  7. Select the permission (in blue) corresponding to a user to either change their permission level, or remove them and stop sharing the schema with them.
  8. Select a privilege and select Save, or Cancel to ignore the changes.

Set the loading sequence for a schema table

When loading a schema, you can easily set the extraction sequence for the tables within that schema. This can be done by giving each table a number, and they will be extracted in an ascending order according to that number. For example, if there are five tables; two of which share the same load order of 1 and the rest have the load order of 2, the two tables of the order 1 will be extracted in parallel first. After loading is successful, the rest of the tables will follow.

To set the tables extraction sequence, simply use the following steps:

  1. Select the “Tables load order” tab. The tables list appears with the corresponding extraction sequence number, defaulted at 10.
  2. Select in the “Table Load Order” column corresponding to any table and enter the extraction order for that table. The default extraction order for all tables is 10, meaning that they will all be extracted in parallel. The number 10 is set so that you can easily set other tables to be extracted first. Note that tables having the same load order will be extracted in parallel.
  3. Select Reset Tables Load Order to reset any values you may have changed back to the default value, i.e. 10.
  4. Select Save Changes.

Edit Schema Structure

You can use the schema definition page to edit a schema structure and the underlying tables for that schema.

To access a schema definition page:

  1. Go the “Schema” page.
  2. Select a schema (not the checkbox) to edit its structure. The schema definition page opens.

Preview Schema Data

You can preview table data from the Table Editor from the Columns section.

The Preview dialog shows sample data from the table along with column-level statistics including MINVALUE, MAXVALUE, and #NULLS.

Preview Data also supports previewing data for Data Lake data source tables that are configured as Remote tables.

To preview table data for a given schema:

  1. Select a table from the Schema Designer to open the Schema Table Editor.
  2. In the Columns section, select Preview Data to review the column statistics and sample rows.
  3. Select X to close the Preview dialog.

© Incorta, Inc. All Rights Reserved.