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Submitted

Multi-Select capabilities

  • September 14, 2016
  • 15 replies
  • 1 view

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TX is awesome for removing a lot of the tedious work involved with traditional ETL, but there are still some things it can improve upon.... for instance, multi-select of fields in various cases would help speed up development a great deal.

The following are a couple of enhancements I'd like to see:

1.) If I add a bunch of Surrogate Key lookups to a table, they all end up at the bottom.  I prefer that all the Keys are at the top of the table, so I then have to drag each one up individually.  A multi-select capability for re-ordering would be incredibly useful

 

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2.) Multiselect tables added to the Business Unit or Data Warehouse and drag them to reorder all at once.  This would make things much easier with a project that has many tables!

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3.) Multi-select fields in table #1 and drag into table #2 to create multiple lookups at once.  This one isn't as big of a deal, but would help save clicks.

 

I think there are probably more places where multi-select makes a lot of sense.  I'll add more to this post as I come across them.

15 replies

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  • Known Participant
  • September 16, 2016

There have been numerous requests for this already so I think it's time TimeXtender bit the bullet and implemented this. From what I understand, this means a lot of reprogramming work because of the UI component used but it would make a lot of users happy so it's definitely worth it.

I suggest all TX users active here post their use cases for multiselect :). Here are ours:

- Multiselect a number of tables to be executed for example

- Multiselect a number of data movements in the DW to remove them.

- Multiselect a number of dimension members to delete them

- Multiselect a number of fields in the custom view editor and drop them in the editor to create parameters

- The same for the custom SQL editor

- Multiselect a number of execution packages and reorder them

- Multiselect relations or relation folders and delete them

- Multiselect a number of tables or views in the stage and drop them on the DW

- Multiselect a number of fields in the source to deselect or select them for the stage


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  • Known Participant
  • May 2, 2017

Even just a "select all" shortcut would be a huge improvement, but multi-select would be very useful!


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Ability to multi-select tables to set common Table Settings such as performance options.  Set Batch Data Cleansing, Compression options, Physical Valid Table, etc.

 

I just did that manually for about 200 tables, and my hand may fall off  :)

 


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  • Known Participant
  • May 4, 2017

I have already given input but we're turning in circles for years on this it seems.

One very simple multiselect I would appreciate is moving multiple tables at once, or multiple fields withing one table and having the option of sorting them.

Another would be to select all datamovements in a DW table and delete all of them at once (when for example you have accidentally dropped the wrong stage table on the wrong dw table).

Multiselect all fields in the custom SQL editor to add them as parameters etc...


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  • Known Participant
  • May 8, 2017
  1. Multiselect tables and enabled guard.
  2. Multiselect tables and put them to SCD type 1
  3. Multiselect tables and execute or deploy
  4. Add multipe dimensions to a cube
  5. Creating a custom view, select multiple fields and add them.
    Also allow the use of custom sorting your tables in this window. If you have 200+ objects it's a pain to find the right table. (this feature has been requested multiple times as well)

It would even fit perfectly with the TX philosophy of doing more with less actions.

 


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  • Known Participant
  • May 8, 2017

I agree with Raf. The view editor could use some much needed love.


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  • Known Participant
  • May 9, 2017

I can not think of an example within those constraints, I would like to see "select all" and similar capabilities for the lists when selecting fields for type 2 history for instance.


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  • Author
  • Known Participant
  • May 11, 2017

Jan,

I think I see what you're referring to.  What about restricting multiselect to a single level of the tree hierarchy.  Once the first item is selected in the project tree, only others at that same level can be selected.  

 

I've seen features implemented in other products for changing properties on multiple items at the same time.  Lets say we select several tables and would like to modify Table Settings for all.  Ideally, it should only enable items which are in common across the selected tables.  So if a table selected is of a different type and doesn't allow for a certain property to be modified, it should be disabled (greyed out) in the Multi-select Table Settings.

Does this help?   I can work on some more examples.  

 


+1

1. Multiselect fields and do the same data transformation

2. Multiselect fields and delete them


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  • Known Participant
  • October 31, 2017

Jan,

I just realised I do know a multiselect tree structure program.

The music player Foobar2000 https://www.foobar2000.org/ has a tree structure object where you can multi-select nodes and leafs and apply actions on them.

So if these guys can do it, I'm sure our TX guys are also capable :).

KR,

Wim

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  • New Participant
  • March 29, 2019

Just had a another partner request in this area. I have have these request from customer/partners quite often - any news/progress? 
Have a look at Wim's post above - is seems like a tree-structure isn't necessary an obstacle here ....


  • Participating Frequently
  • April 24, 2019

Would be a great feature to change the table settings for multiple similar tables!


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  • Known Participant
  • March 9, 2020

@Jan, is this still being looked at?


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  • Participating Frequently
  • July 30, 2020

When multi select is hard because of the hiearchy, you could try to "reverse" the process. For example when opening the table settings on a single table, you could then add a new tab inside the table settings which shows all tables so the user can select all tables to apply it to. (where the initial selected table is allready enabled).

This week I had to enable SCDTypeII on thousands of columns accross many tables, in that box (like Rory Smith allready mentioned), the multi (or all) select box should be a simple one to add.

The history settings:

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The datasource settings:
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  • Community Manager
  • February 26, 2021

Hi David, 
Thanks for submitting your ideas. Your continued feedback on our product is very important to us.

As you can see from the many comments on this post, Multi-Select in a Tree structure interface presents a unique set of challenges. We have made some improvements in this area which you can see reflected in the various "Automate" and other wizards throughout. We will continue to evaluate how we can improve upon selecting and editing multiple objects in TimeXtender in future versions. 

If you have any questions or would like to discuss further, please reach out to me or the dedicated TimeXtender Solution Specialist in you region. Thanks!