Views

A view contains the following structure:

• Categories—Logical groupings of fields within a view. Ensure that the name of a category is intuitive to the business user and provides an indication of the fields that it is likely to contain. For example, a category called Private details is likely to contain a person’s name, age, and gender.
• Fields—Named components that map to data or a derivation of data in the database. Ensure that you name the field based on the business vocabulary of the targeted user group. For example, fields in a view that a product manager uses could be Product, Life Cycle, or Release Date. A view that a financial analyst uses can contain fields such as Profit Margin and Return on Investment. The fields that report writers see in a view infer SQL structures that have been inserted into a database schema.

When creating a view, you define and categorize fields. The definition of a field reveals how it can be used in analysis and reports. You can define a field as a dimension or a metric. Each type of field serves a different purpose:

Field type	Symbol	Description
Dimension		Retrieves the data that will provide the basis for analysis in a report. Dimension fields typically retrieve character-type data such as employee names and company names, or dates such as years and quarters.
Metric		Retrieves numeric data that is the result of calculations on data in the database. Metrics tend to be dynamic—the values that they return depend on the dimensions they are used with. For example, if you include Person and Age in a query, Age per person is calculated.
Date		Recognized as date, date and time, or timestamps in the database, or they are text or metric fields that have been converted.
Pre-Defined Filters		Fields where a set of conditions are set up while creating a view. You can use this to limit the data returned in a query to the expected results. For example, if the filter is called United States, only data from the United States is included in the results. For more information, see Calculated Fields in the Yellowfin documentation.
Parameters		Fields used to capture user-defined values and pass them to calculated fields or filters. These parameters can assist in conducting what-if analysis. For more information, see Parameters in the Yellowfin documentation.
View Filter Groups		Sets of fields to use as filters and reuse multiple times. Filter Groups can contain filter dependency hierarchies and cached values. You need to set up the view filter groups only once, rather than for each report.

The view summary allows you to browse the contents of a view without editing it. From the summary, you can:

• Access information about the purpose of the view and target audience
• See the columns and tables that are included
• View a subset of the data produced
• Access the generated SQL
• Export the view metadata and XML file to a PDF or .docx file

To access the view summary

1. In Remedy Smart Reporting, open the side panel, and select Browse > Views.
2. Open the required view.
3. Click the tabs of the window to view the summary.

Where to go from here

Creating a view of database tables and fields