The data foundation currently has joins and tables affiliated with 2 contexts: (1) Promotions and (2) Shop Facts. Without selecting a context, it’s a bit hard to see the relationships. However, if we select the ‘Promotions’ context, we can then see the affiliated tables that are not grayed out and the joins with the {+} green line.
While this helps a bit more as the excluded tables are grayed out, it can still be difficult to make out what’s going on. I like to take it an additional step further and select the tables included in the context and add them to a view. You can do this in many ways. I like to go ahead and click on the ‘Insert View’ tab next to the ‘Master’ tab in the data foundation and give the view the same name as the context.
….you can do this with the ‘Promotions’ context as well.
You have now isolated your larger universe into smaller subsets that look cleaner and visually less confusing to the eye. Each view will include all of the tables and joins that are affiliated with the context at hand. Any change you make to the view will be incorporated into the ‘Master’ view. You may ask yourself if this is necessary with a 2-3 context universe. I would say it never hurts to take a different view of your tables as you may identify an error or possibly a more efficient way of joining your tables to get the desired result. Also, you never know how a universe can grow and be used over time. A 2-3 context universe may end up being a 20-30 context universe and then you will definitely need to break it up into different views just see all the joins.
The Information Design Tool is more than just a universe builder, it’s an all-access view into your data. As part of the BetterBOBJ ‘Data in Motion’ series we will be discussing some more tips that can help get you a better sense of your data with the IDT:
Information Design Tool – A Universal look inside your company data on March 12, 2014.
https://evtechnologies.com/betterbobj-data-in-motion/