Sometimes, we can improve usability by removing unnecessary items in a form, especially for data entry forms. In this episode, Bill addresses this case.
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“Hey, Bill. I would like to simplify this data entry report.” Ellie Nakamura, Bill's counterpart in Finance, showed him her tablet.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“I need the user to make updates to the values only for the current month:”
Figure 1—Editable Table: Full Calendar Year View
“How can I filter the columns for the other months, Bill?”
“Let me investigate that, Ellie. I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”
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“Ellie, I found a way to do what you asked me. It involves a few steps, but I believe it’s relatively straightforward.”
“Sure. I’m all ears,” said Ellie, with a big smile.
“First, I built a regular table with data similar to what you showed me:”
Figure 2—Initial Data Table
“As you can see, I added a key column for the Editable Table. I believe this might no longer be necessary, but it doesn’t hurt either. Then I added a Date Partition step, to filter the columns for the other months:”
Figure 3—Date Partition Pipeline Step
“What is that New Column Prefix”, Bill?”
“In doing the partition by date, the engine assigns to that column the values for the corresponding month. In this case, February. After those transformations, we get the following:”
Figure 4—Final Values for the Source Table
“OK, what’s the next step?”
“Then, we create an enriched Editable Table based this table, Ellie:”
Figure 5—Enriched Editable Table
“Now we can create a report the user will employ to update the current month’s value:”
Figure 6—Report to Update the Editable Table
“As you requested, Ellie, the user will only see the current month.”
“This looks great, Bill. What about other months? Will the data still be stored?”
“Yes. See for yourself. Change a value and then switch to a different month. Finally, go back to February.”
“Indeed! Anything else I should do?”
“Best practice is to create a transform of the Editable Table. This will consolidate the updates from multiple users and provide an audit trail, should it be required:”
Figure 7—Final Transform to Publish Data to
“Why the Model step, Bill?”
“In case you want to reconstruct the full year view. It’s not absolutely required, but it’s handy sometimes. I have added the Months (Yr) option to the Columns, so you get the yearly overview:”
Figure 8—Report Based on the Final Transform
“Mind you, Ellie. This will only be updated after you publish the data from the Editable Table.”
“And how do I do that, Bill?”
“The simplest way is scheduling updates on a regular basis. This will depend on the frequency of the updates.”
“How do I control that?”
“Go to Build / Promotion Options and click on the button labeled Recurring Updates for Editable Tables:”
Figure 9—Scheduling Data Publication
“By default, it’ll publish every hour, but we can change that.”
“Wonderful, Bill. Thanks a lot!”
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#BillTheTBMGuy
#apptio #editable-tables