Ray Light's dashboard

Hi Ed,

Sorry I missed this one. This can be achieved at the metric level, be defining metrics for "Last Week" or "This Week AND Last Week".

We can set up a call if you want and I can help you create these.

Thanks,
Ray

Hi Tom,

There is no simple workaround for this that I can come up with, other than giving it all null values a fake date. I am sure you don't want to do this, so I am looking into updating the application to allow for null values when date mapping.

I believe this can be done rather simply, but requires changes to the production platform on our side. I am talking to guys here about this, and I hope we can have this updated asap. I will keep you posted.

Thanks,
Ray

Hi Scott,

I'm sorry you are experiencing problems. When uploading data, if the application recognizes a particular type of data, it will give you the option to map the data to a provided hierarchy. In this way, if the application recognizes a date column, and this column is mapped to the Date hierarchy, you will be able to break things down by additional date attributes such as year, semester, quarter, month, day of week, etc.

However, during upload, you can only map one column to the date hierarchy. If your data contains multiple dates, it is necessary to map them separately after the upload using the application's data management features.

We know this is ugly, and we are working on a way to make this less error prone and easier for users.

If you continue having problems, I would be happy to arrange a call and see what I can do to help you get your data in.

Thanks for your patience,
Ray

support email: support@gooddata.com
support phone: (415) 200-0194

Hi Tom,

I'm sorry you are having so many troubles with this. This error message is saying that there is at least one source value that cannot be mapped to the date dimension.

The only thing I can think of is that there is a misformed date in the data, or possibly a null value. I'm guessing in this case that it's the latter. We have seen this before and are working on ways to address a null value when mapping.

Can you tell me if you have any null values in the date data?

Thanks,
Ray

Hi Tom,

I'm sorry you are having problems with this. We know this is tricky and are working to greatly improve this. In the meantime, here are some steps that I hope will help you achieve what you are trying to do.

After uploading a file, your unmapped date columns should be presented as any old attribute. Go to the data management section (Data tab) and select the attribute that you would like to map to a date dimension. From the attribute's properties page, click the "Map Attribute" presented in the right column.

This should bring up the map attribute dialog box. In the first column, select the "Provided Attributes" folder. In the second column, select the "Date" attribute.

Now comes the tricky part and what may be causing errors. After selecting "Date", note the drop down box asking to select a label. There are two choices here:

1) Date - This refers to dates formatted as YYYY-MM-DD (ie,, 2009-08-12)

2) US Date - This refers to dates formatted as MM-DD-YYYY (ie, 08/12/2009 - note the preceding "0" in the month, which is required)



Here it is required to select the appropriate date format which corresponds to the way your date is formatted in your data. At this time, only these two formats are accepted.

By mapping in this manner, multiple data mapping actually create multiple Time dimensions. So a Start Date will create a time hierarchy called "[Start Date] Month, [Start Date] Day," and so on. A subsequent End Date will create another hierarchy labelled as "[End Date] Month, [End Date] Day." So in one file, while it is not possible to map multiple columns to "Start Date", it is possible to designate multiple date fields.

I know this is confusing, but I hope this helps you achieve what you are trying to do. If you continue to have problems, I'd be happy to set up a call with you so we can try to help. Just let me know.

Thanks,
Ray

support email: support@gooddata.com
support phone: (415) 200-0194

Good speaking with you! I hope that everything worked out. Just let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

For CSV upload reference:
http://getsatisfaction.com/gooddata/t...

Thanks!
Ray

Hi Anthony,

I'm sorry you are experiencing this problem. I am logged in to the application now, and I am unable to re-create this error.

There is only one thing I can think of that could be causing this. If you are logged in to the application and idle for a certain amount of time, the security token expires and prevents you from uploading something. This is a bug on our side that is currently being worked on and will soon be patched.

In the meantime, a simple workaround is to log out and re-login, as this will reset the timer on the security token.

If this still doesn't work for you, I would be happy to set up a quick call with you to try to get your data loaded. Just let me know.

Thanks for your patience,
Ray

support@gooddata.com (or ray@...)

Hi Tom,

I'm sorry you are experiencing this problem. This is a high priority bug on our side that we are working to fix. The guys here have talked this one through and you should see this fix in an update soon.

Thanks for your patience,
Ray

Presently, there is no way for end-users to manage the type of object content types. We automatically add this information during data loading.

However, if you would like to see some additional content types here, just let us know and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

Thanks again, Tom. We have several modifications in mind for improving the date dimension, and I will add this to the wish list. You should see some improvements here soon.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for this suggestion. I will look into this and try to get it changed in an upcoming release.

Thanks!
Ray

I spent some time talking to someone about this today, and I think I beter understand now what you are looking for. I agree this would be a good feature. I've added it to our watchlist, and will report back if there is any update.

Thanks for sharing this idea with us!

Hi Tom,

You're absolutely right. We know that this feature is currently lacking and that we need to implement this. This is definitely on the drawing board, but I don't have an estimated release date for this yet.

For sure I will post here when we add this new dimension.

Thanks,
Ray

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the suggestion! I will add this to our enhancements log for prioritization and scheduling. In the meantime, it sounds like the weighted average you are describing could be defined as another metric, no?

Thanks,
Ray

Thank you for your feedback! You're right, this is a slow process, and one thing we are working on is re-factoring the data management portion for better usability.

In the meantime, there is a workaround that might be helpful to you. If you create a report, you can create metrics through the Slice and Dice dialog box (What). From this dialog, you have access to both the simple and advanced metric editor. Any metric created here that is saved as a "Global Metric" will be added to the project.

I hope that this suggestion can help make your workflow more efficient now, and we will continue to work on optimizing the workflows contained in the Data tab.

Thanks again!