Analytics tools tips and tricks

Applying row level security for in db connectors (Pre 6.5) for 6.5 onwards check this  articles  http://spotfiretipsntricks.blogspot.com/2014/12/personalized-in-db-connectors-for.html In  6.5 this is part of out of the box functionality to pass in username, group and domain  By default InDB Connectors can ask for username password from the user and that cna be used to apply row level security. However certain times, you would want to keep using the service account to query the database, but still apply row level security while using IN-DB queries Though InDB connectors directly do not support passing in  %CURRENT_USER%  parameter, we can still apply row level security using a simple personalized information link and loading the in-db connector as a ondemand table. This article will walk thru the steps needed to do so. Lets assume each spotfire user has access to some states data and we have  a lookup table which maps ...

Sometimes you need to sort charts based on different values rather than metrics the chart is showing. For e.g You could be showing total sales for territories, but you really want to sort the results by Average Discount offered per territory , or may be average sales per for territory. Or may be you want to give the user the flexibility to choose how he wants to sort. Spotfire's DenseRank function and property controls comes in real handy here. In my example I mentioned above, I will introduced a DocumentProperty SortBy and use expressions to set the value. The Property si exposed as a drop down controls in the text area. The four expressions I use are DenseRank(Avg([Gross Profit]) over ([Territory])) DenseRank(Sum([Gross Profit]) over ([Territory])) DenseRank(Avg([Discount]) over ([Territory])) DenseRank(Sum([Discount]) over ([Territory])) And the on the chart I introduced the property on the category axis as $sortby So my Axis Expression looks l...

Spotfire Information Links and the entire Information Modelling layer in Spotfire is a great way to democratize your data. Information links become great starting point for your users to build their analytics without even knowing SQL or where the server is, what table to use and how are they joined  and all the geeky stuff.  In a typical instance there is a high likelihood that some of the information links are shared between different reports. With new versions of Spotfire now there is an option available to cache Individual Information links. The data behind the information link is cached at the Spotfire Server level. The cache is a Spotfire specific binary file which is stored on the Hard Drive of your Spotfire server. So you need to ensure that if you are caching there is enough space.  The cache itself is self cleaning depending on timeouts and validation query. Also a Spotfire server Restart would clear up the cache, so you need to accommodate f...