Views

Views sit on top of the data graph of cubes and create a facade of your whole data model with which data consumers can interact. They are useful for defining metrics, managing governance and data access, and controlling ambiguous join paths.

Any view should have the following parameters: name and cubes.

Parameters

name

The name parameter serves as the identifier of a view. It must be unique among all cubes and views within a deployment and follow the naming conventions.

view(`active_users`, {});
 

extends

You can use the extends parameter to extend views in order to reuse all declared members of a view.

In the example below, extended_orders will extend orders with an additional join path:

view(`orders`, {
  cubes: [
    {
      join_path: `base_orders`,
      includes: `*`
    }
  ]
})
 
view(`extended_orders`, {
  extends: orders,
  cubes: [
    {
      join_path: `base_orders.users`,
      includes: `*`
    }
  ]
})

title

Use the title parameter to change the display name of the view.

cube(`orders`, {
  sql_table: `orders`,
  title: `Product Orders`,
});

description

This parameter provides a human-readable description of a view. When applicable, it will be displayed in Playground and exposed to data consumers via APIs and integrations.

A description can give a hint both to your team and end users, making sure they interpret the data correctly.

view(`active_users`, {
  description: `14 days rolling count of active users`,
});

public

The public parameter is used to manage the visibility of a view. Valid values for public are true and false. When set to false, this view cannot be queried through the API. Defaults to true.

views:
  - name: orders
    public: false

You can also use COMPILE_CONTEXT for dynamic visibility if necessary, check out our Controlling access to cubes and views recipe.

view(`arr`, {
  description: `Annual Recurring Revenue`,
  public: COMPILE_CONTEXT.security_context.is_finance,
 
  cubes: [
    {
      join_path: revenue,
      includes: [
        `arr`,
        `date`
      ]
    },
    {
      join_path: revenue.customers,
      includes: `plan`
    }
  ]
})

To learn more about using public to control visibility based on security context, read the Controlling access to cubes and views recipe.

meta

Custom metadata. Can be used to pass any information to the frontend.

view(`active_users`, {
  meta: {
    any: `value`
  }
});

cubes

Use cubes parameter in view to include exposed cubes in bulk. You can build your view by combining multiple joined cubes together and specifying the path by which they should be joined for that particular view.

view(`orders`, {
  cubes: [
    {
      join_path: base_orders,
      includes: [
        `status`,
        `created_date`,
        `total_amount`,
        `total_amount_shipped`,
        `count`,
        `average_order_value`
      ]
    },
    {
      join_path: base_orders.line_items.products,
      includes: [
        {
          name: `name`,
          alias: `product`,
          title: `My custom product`,
          description: `My custom product description`,
          format: `number`,
          meta: {
            some: `custom`,
            meta: `data`
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      join_path: base_orders.users,
      prefix: true
      includes: `*`,
      excludes: [
        `company`
      ]
    }
  ]
});

join_path

When listing cubes to expose, you need to provide a join_path parameter. It uses the "dot notation" to describe the join path: cube_1.cube_2.cube_3.

For the root cube of the view, just use the cube name as in the example above for base_orders.

includes and excludes

The other required parameter inside the cubes block is includes. Use it to list measures, dimensions, or segments you'd like to include into the view.

To include all members from a cube, use the includes all shorthand: includes: "*". In that case, you can also use the excludes parameter to list members that you'd like to exclude.

prefix

If you'd like to prefix exposed members with the cube name, you can do so by setting the prefix parameter to true. It will prefix members with the cube name, e.g. users_city. You can use the alias parameter to specify a custom prefix.

alias

If you'd like to rename an included member, you can use the alias parameter.

title

If you'd like to override the title of a member, you can use the title parameter.

description

If you'd like to override the description of a member, you can use the description parameter.

format

If you'd like to override the format of a member, you can use the format parameter.

meta

If you'd like to override the metadata of a member, you can use the meta parameter. Note that the meta is overridded as a whole.

folders

The folders parameter is used to organize members of a view (e.g., dimensions, hierarchies, measures, etc.) into logical groups. Folders can contain non-overlapping subsets of members from a view.

Each folder should specify a human-readable name via the name parameter and list included members via the includes parameter:

view(`customers`, {
  cubes: [
    {
      join_path: `users`,
      includes: `*`
    },
    {
      join_path: `users.orders`,
      prefix: true,
      includes: [
        `status`,
        `price`,
        `count`
      ]
    }
  ],
 
  folders: [
    {
      name: `Basic Details`,
      includes: [
        `created_at`,
        `location`,
        `orders_status`,
        `orders_count`
      ]
    },
 
    {
      name: `Sensitive Details`,
      includes: [
        `name`,
        `gender`
      ]
    }
  ]
})

access_policy

The access_policy parameter is used to configure data access policies.