Martin Matula's dashboard

Martin Matula replied on December 09, 2008 15:59 to the problem "DBD::mysql::db do failed: Column length too big for column '..." in GoodData:

The weird thing is that I don't think there is any value longer than 255 characters after removing the "Description" column. At least the "max" value for the second longest column (Security Type) shows less than 255 (something around 210 or so). And it still complains.

Martin Matula replied on December 09, 2008 10:05 to the question "Programmatic API?" in GoodData:

Took a look at your blog and the API's. Very nice! :)
At least programmatic updates would be nice initially - I'm OK with doing the initial upload (defining the data model) manually.

Martin Matula shared an idea in GoodData on December 09, 2008 09:27:

Sharing a use-case

I thought I would share what I tried to do. Not sure how relevant the use-case is for your main target audience, anyway, maybe it could be considered for the future.
I wanted to upload historical stock prices for several stock symbols (and possibly some other data for the symbols - if multiple dimensions worked :)). The stock prices are available from Yahoo in form of CSV files, however it is one CSV file per stock symbol and the symbol itself is not part of the file (see http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table... as an example). I was hoping I could upload several files into the same dimension (doing append instead of replace) and also while uploading, specify another column manually - symbol name - with ability to set a value for each upload. Since this is not possible, I ended up doing some updates in a spreadsheet. Anyway, the data was too big and my spreadsheet could not handle merges of those large data, so after I added Symbol column to each of the CSV files, I had to use some other tool for merging. Bottom-line: "append" besides "update" (which replaces the data) would be nice. Also being able to add a column with manually specified value during the upload would be nice in this case - not sure if it would be useful in general though.
Also I noticed GoodData could be more generous about the formats it recognizes - e.g. date in a form of mm/dd/yy was not recognized as a date, column with numbers prefixed by $ was not recognized as countable (if not because of "$" then maybe because thousands were separated by comma).
Also, manually updating this sort of data is quite painful, so would be nice to have a way of automating that (see the other question I posted).

Martin Matula asked a question in GoodData on December 09, 2008 09:13:

Programmatic API?

Are you planning to publish a programmatic API that could be used to automate data updates by clients?

Martin Matula asked a question in GoodData on December 08, 2008 22:57:

Several dimensions?

I have a csv file containing a list of stock symbols and another one containing historical prices for these symbols. Each of the two files contains a column named Symbol containing symbol names. How can I make connection between the two dimensions via the Symbol attribute?

Martin Matula shared an idea in GoodData on December 08, 2008 22:28:

Usability annoyance regarding data uploads

Would be nice to be able to delete uploads when in the "Upload Data" section (besides being able to update them) and be able to update them in the "Uploads" section. When trying to work around the issues I have with the upload and put the data into an acceptable form, having to switch between these two screens ("Upload Data" and "Uploads") gets quite annoying.

Martin Matula shared an idea in GoodData on December 08, 2008 21:04:

Error message irrelevant to other screens

When uploading data and playing with the diagram I got an error "This connection is not valid" or something like that. I did not notice it until I was on a completely unrelated screen - only then it caught my attention while scrolling. And it got me confused, as I was not sure what it means - did something go wrong with my connection to the server, or does this relate to some internal error - connection to the database, or what. Then I realized it must be related to that diagram drawing. Bottom line - it would be good to automatically dismiss these error messages once user switches to a different screen.

Martin Matula replied on December 08, 2008 19:41 to the idea "Comments after switching to graph view" in GoodData:

Oh, I see. You are right it is not obvious at all given there is only one comment - moreover the comment is clickable - so looks like active - even in the graph mode. And when I doubleclick on it it does not switch to the tabular view and it does not go back in history either.

Martin Matula replied on December 08, 2008 19:22 to the question "No link to this forum from beta.gooddata.com?" in GoodData:

I see. I was looking for a way of initiating a new topic, so I did not try clicking on any of the existing topics. That's why I thought a link to the forum top page would be nice.

Martin Matula shared an idea in GoodData on December 08, 2008 18:01:

Comments after switching to graph view

Nice work on adding graphs. I noticed though, that when one adds a comment when in the tabular view (attached to a particular cell), that comment gets confusing after one switches to the graph view. I run into this when looking at the Balance report - it was first in the tabular view, then Roman attached a note to a particular cell and then switched to a graph view. Now it is confusing - no way to see which data it corresponds to without going back in history. Would be nice if the graph could indicate which bar the comment is attached to, or maybe you should hide the comment.

Martin Matula asked a question in GoodData on December 08, 2008 17:55:

No link to this forum from beta.gooddata.com?

I was trying to get to this forum from beta.gooddata.com, but could not find a link. Maybe it is there, I just could not find it. I tried clicking of Feedback, but as far as I can see that gives me only a read-only view of this forum. So if the link is there, you may want to make it easier to find. I ended up going to the invitation e-mail to find the link there.

Martin Matula replied on August 08, 2008 10:45 to the discussion "Annotations not counted as comments?" in GoodData:

Weird - I went to try out the new features and now none of the reports I previously saved are showing any data - all I see is an rectangle at the top left.

Martin Matula replied on July 30, 2008 21:17 to the question "To ignore "rogue reports risks" or not?" in GoodData:

FYI - clicking on the link provided by Petr gives me "Unexpected error occurred" message an the "clock" seems to be spinning forever.

Martin Matula replied on July 30, 2008 08:32 to the problem "Placing reports on My Desktop" in GoodData:

Just to explain why I think it was not intuitive also for the initial save. When I created a report, I wanted to keep it in my desktop, did not want to publish it (since I already saw, there is something like My Desktop where I can keep my private reports). But, in the dialog, I did not see how to save it as private - I only saw those other spaces listed. So than I thought maybe those are all sub-spaces of My Desktop - please note many forms out there on the internet use an approach of having (Select value) "value" in the drop down and don't let you submit unless you select some other value - so I automatically assumed keeping it as "Select Destination" will not let me submit.
Then I saw the report is probably public, because it is listed with these other reports done by others. Only then I tried what happens if I let the "Select Destination" value selected...

Martin Matula replied on July 30, 2008 08:24 to the idea ""Export Report" RFE's" in GoodData:

Great - if that is the case, I'm surprised it hasn't been implemented in beta!

Martin Matula replied on July 30, 2008 08:22 to the problem "Placing reports on My Desktop" in GoodData:

Sure - I understand what you meant - I just think it is wrong. "Select Destination" does not look like a valid value to me and yet it behaves as a valid value - not only I can leave it selected when initially saving the report, I can also change the destination to that value after the report has been published and it will move back to My Desktop. That's not intuitive at all. Why don't you simply call it My Desktop or Private Workspace, or something that is a real destination name. Or put a checkbox named "Keep the report private" and only if unselected, let people choose the destination.

Martin Matula replied on July 29, 2008 20:05 to the problem "Newly added global metric disabled" in GoodData:

It is quite annoying - if you could at least make sure that a disabled metric can never be selected/checked or checked metric can never be disabled - otherwise I am stuck - cannot fix the metric, cannot fix the report. The only way to get rid of it is to delete and recreate the report hoping I will not make a similar mistake when creating the metric again.

Martin Matula reported a problem in GoodData on July 29, 2008 19:59:

Placing reports on My Desktop

I find it confusing that in order to place the report on My Desktop I have to set the destination to "Select Destination" value - based on the name it does not look like a valid value in the first place.

Martin Matula started a conversation in GoodData on July 29, 2008 19:51:

Annotations not counted as comments?

In the list of reports, there are two numbers shown - number of snapshots and number of comments. As far as I can tell, only general comments to the report as a whole are counted as comments. I find it confusing that annotations are not counted - in the report detail, they are displayed as comments. Shouldn't they be counted in?

Martin Matula shared an idea in GoodData on July 29, 2008 19:44:

"Export Report" RFE's

Export to OpenDocument (ODS) format (besides PDF and XLS) would be great.
Also would be useful to be able to choose to export comments as well.