Update all existing visualizations using this metric set

#1

Updating the default visualization on this metric set means any subsequent user who uses this metric set for the first time will see this visualization. All existing visualizations using this metric set will not be affected. Continue?

Is a message shown when you click “update” in the data analysis panel for a metric set. Is there a way to update all the existing visualizations / uses of a metric set? I normally need to delete and re-add a metric set to a dashboard for it to update, but then all my filters and navigations and what not need to be added back in and it is very time consuming.

Thank you

#2

Hi @richard.kubina,

It’s by design that changes are not automatically propagated to your dashboards or reports since we want to avoid accidental changes propagating into existing content and possibly breaking the dashboards that you have created. The same is true for styles and themes and not just metric sets, if you update a style you need to add it again to an older dashboard to have it updated. Dashboard templates are an obvious exception to this concept as the whole point of a template is to be a place where you can edit it once and have changes pushed into multiple places.

I’m curious - how much metric set reuse to have have in your projects? Also, how often are you reworking such a widely distributed Metric Set? It seems to me that something so wildly distributed would also be stable and unchanging but maybe i don’t understand the situation.

I can see using a Metric Set a few times on a few different dashboards but i can’t imagine it happening in a ton of dashboards. If it is something that you see on almost every dashboard, maybe you should consider building it into a template instead?

#3

I been wanting this too!
ok here is the thing some of us actually develop metric sets but before we can get them perfect we put them on a dashboard, maybe the user sees something we miss.
ok so we need to make a small change to this one metric set, now if it only used on one place on one dashboard great just do it form the dashboard and update the metric set for the next time it used.
BUT
when it is used in lots of places and all the places nee this change (re using things like good developers) then to update them all is a pain because you have to do it pone by one or delete re add and connect all filters back up.

What we want is an Option to push the changes we make in the metric set (with out having to add a measure or something because that sometimes doesn’t get all the small color changes and what not.) to all the copies or pick the individual copies (there might be one that doesn’t get this update.).

I know it can cause some weirdness and get out of hand, just make me click that big warning this get messy after a while, we cant be held responsible.

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#4

James Davis, thank you, I couldn’t have said it better.
I guess this should have been in the feature requests section.

#5

Jeff, could this be moved to the Feature Request board? Maybe the idea is to have a “pull” button to grab the latest default visualization?

#6

No problem @richard.kubina. Looks like there is an existing ticket (ref67752) that already has james and many others attached to it asking for this. I’ll add you as well to put more weight behind it.

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#7

Me too please! (unless I’m one of the ‘many others’ already)

1 Like
#8

@jeff
this is an old request i really hope that with all the others on it already that it is part of version 7

#9

Sadly no, as far as i’m aware this isn’t going to be part of version 7. But i can tell you that version 7 is going to be our largest release to date so there are a lot of other goodies to come.

@david.glickman - i have added you as you were not on the request list.

#10

i guess the danger of letting this be is that Power users could do it and they might not have the understanding as much as some developers would. maybe it could be a developer/admin only function?

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#11

We just upgraded to version 8 (I believe?) and don’t see this, but I’m hoping I’m just missing it somewhere. Is this feature live now? Or in the works?

#12

I also see this as something that would be definitely helpful to our organization.

Thank you!

#13

Hi,

When you want to reuse the visualization itself without making a copy, you’re meant to be able to place this on a small dashboard canvas along with other optional pieces like an attached legend or a title. Then you can drag and drop this onto other dashboards/views and combine it with other content. You can find examples of dashboards like these that are ideal for reuse in the Getting Started with Dundas BI project that comes with Dundas BI, in the “Simple” folder. If this feature doesn’t work well for some of your scenarios we’d like to know more about those cases.

A metric set determines the data itself and is not the same thing as its visualization, which is why you can always swap out the visualization with a single click while maintaining various settings including formatting and states. Reusing a metric set was not meant to be the same thing as reusing a visualization except for the default one used as a starting point when first dragged onto dashboards/views, which are then separate and can be customized or re-visualized, they’re saved in separate files that could have been created by different users with various permissions, and were not meant to be kept in sync according to one set of properties. If you aren’t reusing a dashboard canvas, a previous suggestion that we are keeping in mind would be to edit a dashboard/view and update one of its visualizations based on the metric set default visualization – something like the existing Update button in the Data Analysis Panel but in the opposite direction. It still may not be the right option for you when you want to keep every copy of a visualization in sync.

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