Forum Discussion
Helper IDatamart --> Live Connection --> How to format Data column?
Hi. It's not a datamart issue. If you add a Date column as a range slicer it will look like that. The slicer won't care about the format. If you want a range filter for Year-Month you can only build it creating a column with format "YYYYMM" as integer. I wouldn't recommend doing that with the range bar because it doesn't stop at month 12 because it's a number and not a date. You want to hid the bar if you use that approach to keep a clean UX.
I hope that helps,
P/D the connections it's not a live connections, it's a direct query. It's not the same thing. We can deep dive in that if you want.
Super UserHi. It's not a datamart issue. If you add a Date column as a range slicer it will look like that. The slicer won't care about the format. If you want a range filter for Year-Month you can only build it creating a column with format "YYYYMM" as integer. I wouldn't recommend doing that with the range bar because it doesn't stop at month 12 because it's a number and not a date. You want to hid the bar if you use that approach to keep a clean UX.
I hope that helps,
P/D the connections it's not a live connections, it's a direct query. It's not the same thing. We can deep dive in that if you want.
- Tomcat3
Actually, the default is a live connection, which is what I want. You can convert to DQ if needed. Not a significant issue for me.
- ibarrau
Was the date format information helpfull?
Regarding the connection the docs specify live connection it's only against the dataset generated but not from dataset to datamart. I'll deep dive on this, thanks for bringing that up 🙂Regards
- Tomcat3
I agree, "live" only to the Datamart. The mart is on a refresh schedule against other data sources. They imply "magically updated on a no-code, no-fuss" basis. I think this pertains only to Citizen Developers and Code-Averse Business Analysts. (not a criticism, should solve many problems for them)
For a professional developer, I don't see much value in Datamarts yet, still to early. My work involves multiple Dataflows, at several levels. Coordination of refreshes, timing and (unexpected) locking won't go away soon. The primary reason for adding a Datamart to this scenario is to provide the XMLA Endpoint. That's a MAJOR advance, since we can use Power Query for ETL and enrichment, and then tap into the output for consumption elsewhere.
- Tomcat3
For the dates in the slider, I missed a step. You are correct that formatting for the column does not carry-over to the slider. The trick is to use a Date table to do the formatting ahead of time. I created a column which returns only the year as a four digit number. I use that value from the Date table in the slider. I did not get far enough into the Datamart to add the Date table, or anything else, Datamarts are very unstable at this time, if you make a change to table structure, the update can fail, and frequently the mart cannot be recovered.
