How to create a new object

When you add tables to your Data Connection, you will be able to choose from columns that already exist in that table in the Schema. There may be occasions though when you need to create an object that doesn’t already exist in that table.

 Instructions

1. Click the Dashboard Configuration icon at the top-right of the Dashboard

   Open

   

2. Click Data Connections and select the connection you want to work on from the left-hand side. You’ll then be able to see all tables and columns that already exist in that connection

   Open

   

3. Select the table that you want to add your new object to by:

   1. Clicking an existing object in the table

   2. Clicking the table header (if you use this method, you’ll need to click the ‘Objects’ tab next

4. To add a new object, click the ‘Add column’ icon at the top-right of the screen

5. Click ‘Manual Creation’, enter a unique name for the object and click ‘Generate’ at the bottom-right of the screen. Initially, the object will be created as a folder - in simple terms, this is an object without a ‘Select’ statement

Manually defining the object

1. Click the ‘Object Type’ drop down and choose whether this object is a Dimension or Measure

2. Click the ‘Data Type’ and select the type that you want to use from the drop-down list

3. You can now start adding detail into the ‘Select’ statement and in this example, we’re adding some SQL that will count everything in the table.

   As this object is a measure and the data type is number, you will also be able to specify further details such as whether prefixes or suffixes are used and how many decimal places you want to see

Testing the object

As this object has been built manually, it’s good practice to test it before you save it and start using it on the dashboard.

1. Click the ‘Display sample data’ icon and in this example, we can see that there are 1234 customers in the table

2. Finally, remember to save this object before you exit the ‘Dashboard Configuration’ screen