Mashup Data

This section describes how to create a new data block by simple drag-and-drop operations.

When to Use

This approach is especially useful in the following cases:

  • You are creating a data set from a data model. In this case, you do not need to define any joins because all joins are already defined in the data model.

  • You need to mash up data from different data sources.

If you do not have a data model, and need to create joins on a single datasource, the approach described in Query Data may produce the desired data set more efficiently than the approach described here.

Basic Steps

Watch Video: Create a New Data Block

This video might show an earlier version of the feature or operation that differs in minor ways from the current version.

To create a data set in the User Portal by mashing up data with drag-and-drop operations, follow the steps below:

  1. Log into the User Portal.

    You may see the ‘Create Visualization’ dialog box.

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    Press the ‘Close’ button Close to continue with the steps below (recommended), or press Start from Scratch to skip the ‘New Data Worksheet’ dialog box (equivalent to selecting ‘Mashup Data’ Mashup Data).

  2. Press the ‘Create’ button Create at the top of the User Portal, and select the ‘Data Worksheet’ Data Worksheet option.

    press Create button at top of User Portal and select Worksheet

    This opens Visual Composer in a separate browser tab and displays the ‘New Data Worksheet’ dialog box.

    New Data Worksheet dialog box showing Mashup Data and other options

  3. Choose the ‘Mashup Data’ Mashup Data option. This creates a blank Data Worksheet named ‘Untitled-X’, where X is an auto-incremented integer.

    blank Data Worksheet canvas opened in Visual Composer after choosing Mashup Data

  4. Proceed to add data blocks to the Data Worksheet. Drag the desired data (attributes, fields, or tables) from the left panel.

    drag data attributes or tables from left panel into the worksheet canvas

    You can also drag a data block (or individual columns of a data block) from another Data Worksheet. In this case, the inserted data block remains linked to the original Data Worksheet in which it is defined, and updates automatically in response to changes in the source Data Worksheet. To disable this auto-update behavior, press the ‘Disable Auto Update’ button Disable Auto Update in the toolbar of the bottom panel.

    press Auto Update button in toolbar to disable automatic update from source worksheet

    You can then force an update on-demand by right-clicking the data block (or by pressing the ‘Actions’ button Actions) and selecting the ‘Update Mirror’ option. To restore the original auto-update behavior, press the ‘Enable Auto Update’ button Enable Auto Update.

  5. Optional: To modify the properties of a column in a data block, such as its name, visibility, position, sort order, see Modify a Column.

  6. Optional: To view the query represented by the data block, see Preview Query. To preview the data returned by the data block, see Preview Data.

  7. Mark your final result as the primary data block. To do this, right-click the data block and select ‘Set as Primary’ from the context menu. Note: You can also access menu options from the ‘More’ button (More) in the mini-toolbar. This makes the data block visible to other Data Worksheets, and places it first in the list of data blocks available to any Dashboard that uses this Data Worksheet as its data source.

You can now do data pipeline operations on this data, such as Join Data, Group and Aggregate Data, and Sort Data, or you can proceed to create Dashboards based on this Data Worksheet. See Visualize Your Data for more details on building a Dashboard.