Having a text description of dimensions / indicators

[fschleich]

I would like to have the possibility for a cube designer to provide a description per dimension.

The dashboard designer would be given an help on the meaning of the data he is bringing in his report. The help text would show up on mouse over (tool tips)

[Gannon]

We have complex modelling inside Sisense and it would be great to be able to extend this with a data dictionary.  

Sisense has already built the Usage Analytics Model, but it would be great to have an actual cube that incorporates the details of the model and data itself, that could be used to expose the reporting relationships and descriptions to business and technical users.

The data that is already available is:
* Name (hover over table in Data tab)
* Original Name (hover over table in Data tab)
* Schema (hover over table in Data tab)
* Provider (hover over table in Data tab)
* Tags (added via ellipses from table in Data tab)
* Description (added via ellipses from table in the Data tab)
* Name - column (hover over column in Data tab)
* Type - column (hover over column in Data tab)
* Description - column (added via ellipses in Data tab)

It would be good to be able to access the original name for the column as well.

Being able to export a listing of Sisense Tables and Fields and their corresponding data points as well as descriptions (i.e. the business meaning for a field) would mean that we could offer a simple tabular data dictionary to all our users.

[Gannon]

Within the Data Model, it is possible to provide a description, this is particularly helpful for end users, i.e. we have a field that is Client Size - Major/Medium/Small.  I've added the description to the field (i.e. Major >= $5000, Medium >= $2000 else Small), but this is not accessible anywhere (as far as I can tell) to the end user.

It would be a good improvement for this definition of the field to be available wherever this field appears (i.e. hover displays the text or display an "i" icon to see this description if the field has a description).

Is this possible within existing functionality and/or is there a different intended use for the description field?

If not for this purpose, a specific end user descriptor would be useful.

[Gannon]

Hey @fschleich - I added something similar here before coming across your post - https://community.sisense.com/t5/product-feedback-forum/field-description-accessible-from-field/idi-... 

Fingers crossed one of these gets picked up!

[fschleich]

Hello Gannon.

Indeed, the two suggestions are very similar. I just voted for your proposal as well.

Fingers crossed !

Kind regards,

Franck

[AndrewLoomis]

Hi @Gannon ,

Sisense does have built in data dictionary functionality.  Can you clarify the missing functionality? Is it primarily the export capabilities?

[AndrewLoomis]

Hi @Gannon , I am flagging this UI request with our PMs @Oleksandr_K @YuliyaMotiyets for investigation.

In the meantime, I'm hoping we can get more traction for this with votes (kudos) to get improve its chance of prioritization

[Gannon]

Hey @AndrewLoomis thanks for the comment - I'm looking for a way we can expose this to end users, ideally in a Sisense report.

If we populate all of this stuff, I'd love for people to be able to either:

(A) go and search for a Salesforce field like Account.Industry and see that this corresponds to the field "Segment" in our data model, along with a description.

(B) search for the Segment field in the Sisense data model and track back to what the original source is. I'm trying to give our Salesforce team greater visibility of where our data goes and what the definitions of these things are via an easy to use front end.

It seems like the Data Dictionary means we can store it, but can we expose it to all users.

Thanks!

[AndrewLoomis]

Thanks for the details @Gannon - clearer now on the requirement.

I will have @Oleksandr_K and @YuliyaMotiyets investigate.

Our process for prioritization involves looking at the top voted ideas each quarter and seeing if we can land them into our roadmap.  I'm going to move this to Needs Votes for now, let's continue to raise awareness around this requirement and see if we can get more votes on it.

[DRay]

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