Editing Folders

Screenshot of Edit Data Sources screen with folder in data source enabled.

To edit a folder, click it, and use the Property pane on the right to edit it.

Folder – Property Pane Section

Name

Name of folder (table/view); name initially set to default name of table/view, but can be edited to provide a more meaningful name.

If a folder is not accessible in BI Dashboard Builder, it will appear in red, as shown in the screenshot below. This feature is useful for Enterprise customers that use their own tables/views. To resolve the folder’s accessibility issue, please refer to Adding Custom Tables/Views to Data Sources.

Position

Position of folder node inside branch; editable to change the position of a node to control in what order folders are displayed in a business area. 

[Edit Filter] – Button

The [Edit Filter] button’s pop-up is used to create a filter for the selected folder.

This feature is available to Enterprise and Cloud Catalog Builder clients only, and users must have the system privilege ‘BICFDRFLTR’ to use it; otherwise, the button will be hidden.

Filter expressions are created in the Condition text area using valid SQL syntax for WHERE clause of SELECT statements. (Note that subquery SELECT statements are not allowed.) A Column Name can be added to the Condition text area by clicking the Column Name’s corresponding Insert icon, as shown above.

Filter expressions can range from simple to complex. For example, to create a simple filter expression, use single quotes around values to compare against, and the following wildcard characters:

  1. %  (any string of characters)

  2. _   (any single character)

For the creation of a more complex filter expression, the [Validate Filter] button can be used to validate an expression as it is being entered without it being saved. An error message will only appear if the expression is not valid. If the expression is valid, no message will appear.

The [Validate Filter] button is available for convenience only, as the same validation process occurs when the user clicks on the [Save] button.

[Context Variables] - Button

This button is used to list available context variables for folders. As context variables are used in BI Dashboard/Query Builder, users have the ability to see the list of context variables for a corresponding folder in BI Catalog Builder. Users can also specify for each context variable, if the variable value is required and if the variable can handle multiple values.

Refresh Process:

The refresh process will also refresh the list of context variables.

Custom (Customer's Own) Views:

If context variables in a customer’s own views are modified, to bring the updated list of variables into BI Catalog Builder, users can either use the [Refresh Variables] button in the Folder Context Variables pop-up window (as shown in the screenshot above), or execute a refresh on the folder.

NOTE: In order to be used in CMIC BI, the context variables must use namespace “CMIC_BI”.

Please refer to Advanced Drillthrough Features for BI Dashboard Developers and Designers for details on how to use context variables in your dashboards and queries.

[Export Folder] – Button

This button is used to export folders. Users can export any folder into a file and then import it into another or the same environment. Refer to Import Data Source – Screen for more information.

To export a folder, select the folder and click on the [Export Folder] button. In the Download Folder Export file pop-up window, specify a file name for the folder and press [Download]. Once the file generation is complete, depending on the browser’s download settings, the browser will either prompt the user for a location to store or download the file, or the file will automatically be stored in the browser’s download location. The downloaded file will have the extension .dsf (e.g., my_folder.dsf).

Folder Properties – Property Pane Section

Description

Description for folder (table/view); description initially set to default description of table/view but can be edited to provide a more meaningful description. The Edit Text icon (Screeshot of Edit Text icon.) launches the Edit Text pop-up window where a muli-line description can be entered.

Filter

If a filter was created for the folder via the [Edit Filter] button in the previous section, this field displays the filter expression.

Object

Database name of table/view; display-only.

Owner

Owner of table/view; display-only.

Base Object Name

Used to specify corresponding CMiC table/view when defining UDFs in folders.

NOTE: For a user to be able to update the Base Object Name property, the user must have the following system privilege: ‘BIUDFSETUP - Allow users to modify setup for User Defined Fields definitions’.

Refer to Add/Remove User-Defined Fields (Folders) for more details on using this folder property.

Property Description – Property Pane Section

This section provides a description for the selected folder property in the Folder Properties section.

User-Defined Folders

Example of User-Defined Folder

User-defined folders appear in black font, as shown in the screenshot above. They can be created in BI Dashboard Builder using the Create User-Defined Folder feature. Refer to Create User-Defined Folder Based on Table for more information.

When a new user-defined folder is created, a corresponding user-defined database view will be generated.

User-Defined Views

Adding User-Defined View to a Data Source

Currently, user-defined views can only be created using the Create User-Defined Folder functionality in BI Dashboard Builder. User-defined views are created in CMIC_USER_DEFINED_VIEWS database schema.

Once a user-defined view is created, it can be added as a folder to any user’s data source the same way as any other database view (using Edit Available Tables/Views and Edit Business Area context menu options). Folders created for user-defined views will appear in BI Catalog Builder using black font.

NOTE: For performance reasons, it is advised to avoid creating joins for folders based on user-defined views, as these views may already combine data from many different database tables and views.

User-Defined Views Maintenance

Pgm: SYSUDVIEWMNT – User-Defined Views Maintenance; standard Treeview path: System > User Extensions> User-Defined Views Maintenance

User-defined views can be maintained using the User-Defined Views Maintenance screen located in the System Data module.

This screen allows users to:

  • Re-name views.

  • Check views usage.

  • Delete views (if no usage found).

  • Generate views export script (Enterprise clients only).

Refer to User-Defined Views Maintenance for more information about this screen.

To learn more about how these views are used in BI Catalog Builder, refer to Creating BI-Friendly User-Defined Views from User Extension Tables.

Export/Import User-Defined Views

NOTE: For Enterprise clients only.

Export/import of user-defined views is implemented via generated SQL scripts.

Views can be exported using the [Export] and [Export All] buttons in the User-Defined Views Maintenance screen in the System Data module.

To import user-defined views, the generated SQL script will need to be installed by Database Administrators.