O frabjous day! you can now add or remove tables to views, along with other build-a-table enhancements

As of Cognos Analytics (CA) 12.0.1 you can edit views to add or remove tables from the view in a data module.  This is in addition to the existing adding and removing of columns functionality.

There is an enhanced presentation of objects in the view editor. You can see them in a tree as well as a flat list.  You can see either the selected items of the view or all items in the data module.

The ability to edit your views to add or remove tables has been requested often and I'm happy to say it is finally here.

Editing view enhancements

Adding and removing tables in a view is now possible.

Previously, once a view was created you were stuck with the tables which you had chosen to be in the view.

If you realized, after the fact, that you forgot to include a table you were in a pickle. 

If you realized after the fact that you didn’t want a table in that view you were also in a pickle.

In both cases you would need to delete the view and start over again or, if you had access to the SDK, edit the view to add or remove the tables in question.

UI enhancements

The object views in the Create/edit view editor have been enhanced.  You can see both the objects of the view and the objects of the data module.  The latter allows you to see what is available to add to the view.  You can control whether you want to see the objects in a flat list or in a tree view.  The tree view will be the same as that displayed in the metadata tree of the data module or will be a subset of it, depending on the context. 

Walk around the new UI

Creating a view

When you choose the new table menu item a wizard will pop up. 

The first page of the wizard is called create table. 

The options for the type of table you can create will be determined by the number of query subjects you have selected and by the attributes of the query items in those query subjects.  For example, if you have selected two query subjects and the number and data types of those query subjects are the same then you can, among other options, create a union, except, or intersect.  The information icon for each type of table will tell you why that option is not available.

The default object view will depend on whether you had selected query subjects and then invoked the new table wizard or if you had selected the data module tree root node.  If you choose the former the selected query subjects will be in the list.  You can press the view all tables button to see everything in the data module.  You can then choose to have a flat list or a tree view.  If you choose the latter, you will see all the query subjects in the data module.

Here is a picture of the flat list.

Here is the tree view of the objects.  Since all the objects in the Retailers folder are included, the checkbox state of the Retailers folder is checked.  If some but not all objects were included then the checkbox state would be indeterminate, which is represented by a dash.

Once you have chosen what table type you want and what query subjects you want in it you press the next button.  It will bring you to the create a view of tables wizard page. 

This page allows you to define what query items you want to have in your view.

The rest of the UI in the editor is basically the same.  You can test the view by pressing the refresh button.

If you select a folder and choose to create a table then all the query subjects in that folder will be included.

Editing a view

When you edit a view, you are initially in the second page of the wizard.  It is exactly the same page as the second page of the create table wizard except that the title says Edit a view of tables rather than create a view of tables.

The picture below is the initial page of the previous version of the view editor. 

You will notice that there is now a button to go to a previous page.  This is the edit a view page.

You will also notice that the previous version of the create/edit view editor would show the query items used in the view with their parent query subjects listed.  If you expanded one of them then the query items of the query subject would be displayed.  Those query items which were included in the view would have a checkbox checked on.  Those which were not would have their checkbox unchecked.  If every query item in a query subject was included in the view, then the checkbox for the view would be checked.  If some but not all query items were included, then the indeterminate dash symbol would be used. 

You could edit the view to add or remove query items.  You could not remove or add tables. 

In the new editor the initial view is a list of all the query items in the view.

If you click the view reference tables button the list will change to show you the tables used in the view, just as the previous version of the editor did.  Because I have not included all columns of Emp Position Lookup or Emp Termination Lookup, the checkbox state for those query subjects are the dashed icon.

If you press the tree view button the list of items will be changed to a tree view.  In the picture below, the tree view shows the query items in the view.  If you look to the left of the view editor, you will see, in grey, the metadata tree of the data module.  You will see a folder in the Employee view.  It is called Keys.  The view tree has that folder expanded and shows the query items in it.

In the picture below you will see the referenced tables list presented in a tree view.  Because all of the tables that I have in my Employee view are in the Employee source tables folder only that folder is included.

 If some of the query subjects in the view came from a folder and some came from somewhere else, then the tree will be similar to this:

As you can see from the picture, nodes such as folders or query subjects will have 3 state checkboxes.  The 3 states are unchecked, checked, and partial.  An unchecked checkbox means that the object or, if it is a folder, all of the objects which are children of the folder are not included in the view.  A checked checkbox means that the object is included.  A partial checkbox indicates at least one child object of the object is included.

If you press the previous button, you will see a list of the tables used in the view.  This page is exactly the same as the first page you see when you create a table except the title says edit table rather than create table. The functionality is the same too.

If you press the view all tables button a list of all the query subjects in the data module will appear.  You can view the list as a tree as well as a flat list.

Miscellany

Response time toggling checkboxes in the tree can be slow.  One instance of that was fixed but I have observed others. Those could not be reproduced even when the developer was proxying to my CA server, so it is possibly symptoms of my laptop rather than a product defect.