DigitalCPX 2020: Expert Advice: Model Cleanliness with Rob Marshall

rob_marshall
edited December 2022 in Modeling

It’s not too late for Spring cleaning!

In this session, review and follow guidelines to effectively clean-up your model and optimize it as you build.

We will focus on three key concepts:

  • Performance
  • Scalability 
  • Maintenance

Don't miss the Best Practice article and Guide to support you in your journey.

Watch the video here, download the presentation (.pdf format), and then join the conversation, add comments & questions below!

Answers

  • Nice recap on lot of important concepts! 

  • Synthetic and punchy!
  • This is quite helpful.

  • Hi, 

    Thank you for the interesting tips. 

     

    I would like to clean up as well my saved views. 

    Is there a possibility to have an overview of which saved views are used for actions or for dashboards on new UX?

     

    Kind regards,

    Catheline 

  • @Catheline ,

     

    Sorry, but out of the box there isn't.  A couple of suggestions:

    • For Actions, if you change/clean up the name of the Source to be Module.View or if the source is in a different model (Model.Module.View), that will help.  It will not be a fun chore if you already have a model up and running, but it will help in identifying which views are being used as well as potentially cleaning up unused/unneeded actions
    • In the modules area, you can see which modules are used in Dashboards.  From here, you can open the module and see if any views are defined and clean those up.  The majority of issues we see are views with multiple filter criteria on the same tab.  Additionally, as stated in the video, only have the line items that are truly needed for the action or target module.

      2020-09-23_07-11-58.png

       

    • And please remember, as of now, there is not a way to see if filters on views are using line items from a different module (SYS Time, for instance).  So, in this scenario, it is best to use the Notes functionality on the line item in SYS Time (filter module) to signify it is being used as well as where it is being used.

     

    Hope this helps,

     

    Rob

  • Hi @rob_marshall,

    great session, I was finally able to watch it today! Couple of best practices, really enjoyed that. 

    I have never really focused on renaming the source labels, but this seems to be great option, definitely will take that away. 

    Notes are a must for me! Not only it helps other model builders, but also me if I open a model again after some time!

     

    I was just thinking if it wasn't a great improvement if Summary is set to 'None' immediately after you create new line item? 😉

     

    Great job, thank you for sharing. 

  • @filip.sypniewski 

     

    Glad you liked it.

     

    Rob

  • @rob_marshall 

     

    Hi Rob,

     

    good summary for internal audit.

     

    On the import action source type, it's advised to use either file or saved view but what about an import from data hub list?  

     

    thanks

  • @CommunityMember116919 

     

    From the data hub to the spoke model, every import should be from a view because you can use filters which you can't do using a list.

     

    Rob