Table Vs Table With Aggregation Vs Pivot Vs Blox: Which One Is Right For You?

[intapiuser]

Sisense has several different ways to present table data. Often we pick whichever one we find first that seems to work, instead of picking the table that best meets our requirements. This can result in unnecessarily slow dashboards. 

Table:

A table is the simplest widget. It displays raw data with no transformations done to it. It lacks things like aggregations, jump to dashboard, and selection. It is excellent for creating dashboards that will be primarily used as reports as there are not many ways to interact with a table. The table is the fastest performing widget on this list. 

Table with Aggregation:

Much like a table, it lacks most of the features of a pivot but does allow aggregation. Use this when creating simple reports that need aggregation. 

Pivot:

Pivot tables are the most flexible of our table widgets capable of aggregations, column, sub totals, drill down, and more. Pivots are the most time consuming widget to render on Sisense and so great care should be paid to the performance of dashboards using large amounts of pivots. 

*Pivot is fundamentally different between Windows and Linux. Linux pivot (Pivot2) performs better and has additional features. Pivot2 also has an API to easily customize your pivot widgets*

Blox:

It is possible to create a table in Blox! This table can do aggregation and selections (like jump to dashboard and filtering) but this requires writing specific widget logic. You will also have to do more to style Blox like a table. It loads about as quickly as a generic widget like a column chart. Blox is a good choice when you need the aggregations and selection of a pivot table but can't afford the performance hit, but it will require much more time to develop and maintain on the customer end. This approach is not generally recommended. 

We have summarised the information in this post into a table for quick digestion and future reference.  

Feature\Widget	Table	Table w/ Aggregation	Pivot	Blox
Aggregations	No	Yes	Yes	Must be done in widget
Drill down	No	No	Yes	No
Selections (filters, jump to dashboard)	No	No	Yes	Yes
Excel export	No	No	Yes	No
Sub totals/Grand totals	No	No	Yes	Must be done in widget
Performance	Fastest	Faster than pivot, slower than table	Slowest	As fast as a generic widget
Uses	For exporting user reports	Best for reports that require aggregation	Totals, Rows & Columns; Drill-in	Make a table with aggregation including selections
Customization	Widget scripts	Widget scripts	Widget scripts	Blox and widget scripts