Ideas

Merge Process In 2.6

CFisher24 — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:03:34 -0400

Suggest that the merge process in 2.5 was clearer in identifying the number of resulting records from a merge. In 2.5 it was clearer on what the row count was in the individual tables as well as the resulting merged table. It was therefore easier to identify where duplicates were being created.

Merge

aknotts — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:37:09 -0400

When you merge an external data source in, have the ability to suggest all the fields where the field names are the same, not just the first one so multiple merge criteria are automatically built.

Data Player 2

kmatrix999 — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:55:11 -0400

I know that Data Player 2 in 2.6 is still early stage so its difficult to judge new functionality. Are you proposing to include a contents tab or annotations, anything that will allow for some brief commentary or instructions.

Also assuming that multi tab data players will remain a feature.

Just planning ahead for how might be able to use this.

Formatting numbers

Guy_Cuthbert — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:30:52 -0400

Existing numeric formatting options allow us to choose the number of decimal places required, but this often depends on scale - if I'm looking at sales of one item in one week in one store, I probably want to see cash value in pounds and pence, but if I am looking at total revenue for the last financal year, then I may well want to see just thousands of pounds (typical financial/management reporting).

Would it be possible to allow the user to choose "significant figures" (reminds me of O-level maths, showing my age!) e.g. 5-significant figures would show:

£4.99 = £4.99
£134.59 = £134.59
£23,456.97 = £23,456
£3,457,487.42 = £3,457,500

Better still would the some form of 'scale' format e.g. <£100 show 2dp, £100 - £10,000 round to nearest pound, £10,000+ round to nearest thousand.

Just a thought...

SUBSET_MEAN weighted by

acm — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:09:44 -0500

Hi,

I am trying to calculate per subset the average of a variable (ROI).
I need the ROI weighted by another variable (costs). I can set the weighting in the visuals which works fine, but can I integrate this weighting in the SUBSET_MEAN function?

Thanks
Arjan

Dial View

Focus_Media — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:03:34 -0500

Hi.

Modifying measures in Dial View changes zones, etc. losing thus the last definition.

I think it's better when one defines zones, the user should define number of zones and, based on max-min values, automatically calculates values of each zone (100% / zones)
Then, based on this, it is faster to modify zones if necessary.

Another problem is that if you change 'maximum/minimun' in one zone, the normal thing is to change 'minimum/maximun' value from next/previous zone, and in the actual version it's not so easy.

Regards

Flip Pro/DM into "Viewer" mode

Guy_Cuthbert — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:28:35 -0400

When developing an IOK model it's really useful to see exactly how that model will appear to a Viewer user. At present I end up opening the online Viewer from visokio.com, but it would be really useful if we could just press a [toolbar?] button and flip in/out of 'Viewer mode' so that we can check our work.

Add Information (i) as mouseover popup comment in header field

dvo_D — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:13:03 -0400

Sometimes it might be useful to have a field where the implemented Data is explained in a few sentences.
Frequent users might know exactly what is shown in the graph or in the table.
But to prevent new users from total confusion, an insert of a very small (i) would help with some details regarding the current figures.

Sorting in bar view

WKeith — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:56:26 -0400

When displaying a bar view, it would be good if the sorting of bars within the splits was separate from the sort of the splits, so that if I am showing a comparison between years, they would be consistently shown in year order, not in the order of the value.

The attached snip shows how it currently displays.

A suitable solution would be for the bar view to inherit the sort order of a table view where the rows were being selected.

Cheers

Left and Right Sidebars

xiygx — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:22:50 -0400

Two questions:

What is the purpose of left side bar?

Can I create a tree on left side bar?

e.g.

Germany
* Frankfurt
+ Offices
@ Property Data
@ Analytics
@ Map

This will be very similar to Windows Explorer, when we click we reveal more information and when click it gives us data on main page.

Thank you.

Configure 'advanced' properties of existing tabs

Guy_Cuthbert — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:54:21 -0400

When creating a new Tab, it's possible to use the 'advanced' mode to specify 3 options:

1. Query state
2. View and layout configuration
3. Variable state

Once the tab is created, however, there is no way (is there?!) to edit these settings. It would be useful to be able to change them - for example, we often want variable state to be shared amongst a number of tabs.

New builds content

Pascal — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 23:42:08 -0400

Good afternoon,

I think it would be good to have a description of the content of each build. I am not asking for a 30 pages documents but a list of issues fixed (just a title) and a list of improvement(s) in the new build.
That would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Adding rows in 2.5

benjamin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:16:22 -0400

Hi
I have added rows using Omnscope 2.5 to a table which has been imported /generated from SQL query.
When i refresh from source the rows that i have added get deleted.
How is this problem overcome.

N.B
The reason i need to add rows to the imported tables is that i would like to plot a expected curve on the same graph as actual result.Another way around this would be to enable user in Omnscope 2.5 or 2.6 to be able to plot multiple columns on one scatter graph.

Ben

Future Development and Enhancements

nevynb — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:38:26 -0400

Hi Thomas

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum to cast out my wish list of really funky value adds, these being:
1. Cartogram maps - Map itself grows fat or thinner dependant on some variable
2. Right click - Standard windows/excel type menus when using Data Manager
3. Combination Charting... example, column and line on two axis etc

Output based on Omniscope query

Mees — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:21:39 -0400

Hi guys,

I have created a table in DM used for visuals in Omniscope. Created queries based on filtering....
What I would like is to get an output based on these queries. So, define the output file in DM and put a filter between the Omniscope block and the output block.
Setting the filter on an Omniscope query would be very useful.

Thanks
A

Formulae result in Table summary row

Mees — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:26:28 -0400

Hi guys,

When aggregating records in a view, e.g. Table, you provide an option "Formulae result". This is for us very powerful and used quite often.
In my table view I have a summary row and one of the fields is a percentage. However, as the summary row is the sum of all the rows above, the %summary is incorrect.
This should basically be the formulae results of two other summary values.

What are the possibilities of adding this to the Table view?

Many thanks
Arjan

Subset(,etc..)

acohen — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:26:29 -0500

For instance, It would be invaluable to be able to specify a subset based on whether a date was

Sources: Connecting to SAP BW/InfoCube?

e300984 — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:15:26 -0400

Hiya - We have Omniscope on a 30 day trial. Is there a method of connecting the Data Manager to an SAP BW InfoCube on another server? Thanks in advance. Mike

Bar View: Labelling and colouring for multi-measure?

Guy_Cuthbert — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:58:22 -0400

** FEATURE REQUEST **

Two requests for Bar view please:

1) Enable us to switch off the description of aggregation applied to a measure when showing multiple measures - for example, today we see "Sales Year on Year (Mean; weighted by Sales LY)"... this is useful for an 'analyst' but far too wordy for end user dashboards... we would just want to see "Sales Year on Year"

2) Allow us to Colour by Measure - in a multi-measure Bar view we can colour by many different things (panes, splits, stacks etc.) but not by measures...

Toolbars and styles menu + stop them from disappearing

checkyourfuel — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:40:22 -0400

Until today, I used another menu to assign Data titlebars to my views, which work really well when "printing to PowerPoint" i.e. they describe the views.

Now, however, to assign Data titlebars, I need to do to Tools > Toolbars and styles > Data titlebars.

If possible, it'd be great to have the Toolbars & styles menu item closer to the top, if not at the top.

Also, the data titlebars disappear after I've changed Styles e.g. from Analysis mode to Paper report mode and back to Analysis mode.

If possible, it'd be great if my datatitle bars didn't disappear when I shift between Styles.

Thanks,
James

Ctrl+drag to create duplicate blocks in DM

Guy_Cuthbert — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:43:26 -0400

Data Manager allows a single block to be duplicated (via a menu option) but on several occasions I have wanted to duplicate a number of blocks (e.g. complex data cleansing which needs to be applied to multiple sources before they are merged). I can select multiple blocks by dragging a box around them, but at present the only options I can perform on a selection are move (as a unit) or delete... could you support the de facto Windows system of Ctrl+drag/drop to create copies of multiple blocks?

Force refresh of IOK file within DM

Guy_Cuthbert — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:10:02 -0400

In order to tackle complex data build processes it may be advantageous to divide a task into a number of sub-tasks - for example, in building up a number of data sets from a range of spreadsheets in different directories, it may be useful to treat each directory independently (especially if each handles different types/formats of data). It seems sensible to build a DM IOK file to handle each sub-task, and then build a final DM IOK which uses each sub-task IOK as a data source. This is easy to do, but opening and publishing the 'master' DM IOK doesn't force each of the sub-task IOK files to rebuild itself...

... it would be good if, when handling any IOK file as a data source, there was an option to force the IOK data source to rebuild itself.

% Calculation in Pivot Table

Steve_Randall — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:41:04 -0400

Hi,
The ability to switch to 100%bars in Bar charts is very useful, would it be possible to add the same function to pivot tables where the numbers would be replaced with percentages (of the column totals) please.
Thanks
Steve

Retain aggregation settings across view changes

Guy_Cuthbert — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:21:04 -0400

If I set up a Table View to use a set of aggregated data (perhaps I aggregate on 2 fields, and set aggregation types on several fields) and then changeto a Graph View I lose all of my aggregations. It would be great to be able to retain the aggretation state of a View across changes in its type...

... this leads on to my oft-expressed (verbally, at least) request for Named Aggregations to work like Named Queries (which border on brilliance - so versatile!)

Apply to ALL views - more subtlety

Guy_Cuthbert — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:18:01 -0400

If I change a setting in a View it would be nice to be able to apply just this change to all other views... of the same type, and potentially other types (depending on the change). For example, if I change one or more Style settings on a Bar view, on a tab with several Bar views, it would be great to be able to apply those same style changes to all the other Bar views on the tab, or even across an entire file. If I use the "Apply these settings.." function today then everything changes (measures, split/stack/pane options etc.). If I change something more generic (e.g. font) then it would be great to be able to apply this to every View in every Tab.

As a minimum it would be handy to split out "Apply these visual settings" from "Apply these content settings".

Disaggregated record counts visible in Sidebar

Mees — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:13:04 -0500

The record count per field value in the Sidebar filters is confusing whenever visuals show information on a higher aggregation level compared to the record level. Would it be possible to hide the record count numbers?

New file format(s)?

Guy_Cuthbert — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:11:23 -0500

Probably something of a heresy, but...

We've started to do a lot of ETL-type work using Data Manager (in 2.6) and are very impressed by the potential that it offers for complex model management. My preferred approach is to build a 'Data Map' in Data Manager and conclude with an output step which produces a combined / cleaned / matched / transformed data file for use in Omniscope... this means that I have 3 files for a single analysis model:

1. An IOK which is only used to define and execute a 'Data Map'
2. An IOK file which is only used as a 'Data Store' for...
3. An IOK file which is used for the 'Analysis Model'

This approach gives a lot of fine grained control - for example:

* A 'developer' can build and test new versions of the 'Data Map', whilst an 'analyst' explores the results and prepares visualisations
* New formulae built into the 'Analysis Model' can be reviewed and taken back into the 'Data Map', where appropriate, to improve performance in the 'Analysis Model'
* Multiple end users can save personalised 'Analysis Models', all based on a consistent 'Data Store' - with central control over both the contents of the 'Data Store' and its rebuild schedule

All in all, this offers a very scalable approach for departmental/enterprise solutions, and works *very well* with our Omniscope Model Manager platform.

BUT

Storing all 3 of these as IOK files is very inefficient - we often have models which are 30MB+ in size, and files 1 & 3 don't really *need* the data to be contained within them (certainly model 1 never does - there is, of course, an argument that model 3 is more self-contained if it does retain its source data). It would be good to think about 3 file formats here, for example:

1. .ODM - Omniscope Data Map - a Data Manager model which holds all of the metadata, but doesn't store any data itself (always rebuilds itself from source data)
2. .ODS - Omniscope Data Store (or .ODB - Omniscope Data Base) - an IOK which contains data only, and can be loaded into Omniscope but has no visuals etc.
3. .IOL - "IOK Lite" - an IOK file which relies on a link to an ODS file for its source data

I'm sure this presents plenty of minor headaches, but it would help to encourage a best practice approach... unless there are significant flaws in the approach highlighted above?!

I'm interested in views of other 2.6DM experimenters here...

Guy

Ability to expand one report to full-size view

Pascal — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:26:19 -0500

Let's imagine I have a tab with 4 graphs on it.
I would like to be able, with a mouse click, to expand one of the graphs to full size to look more closely at it.

Text search criteria: ability to provide a list

Pascal — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:40:44 -0500

Let's imagine I have a dataset of 10.000 suppliers. The search box is a text one and it only allows to enter and search for one supplier number at a time.
I tried to find a way to enter a list of, say, 50 suppliers, but I can't seem to be able to do so.
Changing the field type from number or text to category wouldn't be good because of the number of entries.
If there is currently no way of doing so currently, would it be possible to add it in a later version?

2.6 - Data Manager - "black box"

Pascal — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:29:01 -0500

I started to use the data manager in v2.6 and you can very easily end up with a lot of boxes connected to each other.
Depending on the number of input files or systems that you connect and the number of file/data manipulations you have to do, it can become very difficult to read.

My idea would be to group together a certain number of boxes with 0 or 1 input and 1 output and give it a name. It could be opened to show what it contains. Obvisously, it should be possible to give it a name.
That way the ETL would be much easier to read.