I have been working in the Glide builder for two months developing an App based on my experiences in high tech sales.
Working within the confines of Glide has been rewarding and challenging - but one capability that is a roadblock is reporting.
Many people want actionable data which means roll-ups and analytics. The current roll-up is a good start but the inability to filter data in a relation is very problematic. I need to be able to slice and dice data to compare against different reporting periods and different parts of the organization. Like Q1 or Q2. Or for the channel or the direct sales team. Or customer types. Etcā¦Etcā¦
I am now creating dozens of extraneous ātemplatedā fields to act as pseudo filters for inline lists.
After using the system every day for the past two months, rolling up filtered data is proving to be a big challenge.
As you look at new features for Glide - adding a āfilter columnā field (similar to the roll-up column) would be a VERY welcomed addition and seems the most straightforward implementation that would address 90% of what I need, speaking as an every-person, to use as the basis for sums, averages and count roll-ups by different organization units, teams and customers.
If their is a Glide recommended technique to filter tables by multiple columns and then apply roll-ups - I can not find it. So any pointers welcome.
PS. Still not sure who your target market is but the product itself is a fantastic achievement.
@Jeff_Hager@Robert_Petitto and others have suggested the use of templated fields and ITE logic to create āfiltersā. I am using this technique along with row-owners and roles to āfilterā data in a seemingly straightforward manner for the end-user but the ābehind the scenesā addition of a dozen or two columns to 4 different tables highlights the complexity of implementing multiple filters.
Unless I am missing a more generalized and simple technique - which I am not discounting!
Here is one of example of the topic with good techniques/ideas:
Too late for a wish list? Front of the filtering queue (top of the pile?) should be filtering by dates against a range. If a date falls between a range ( start/end ) would enable reporting for week/month/quarter/year actions and items.
I do a lot of this sort of stuff, and yeah and it can get pretty complicated and cumbersome pretty quickly. I think the best advice I can give is to make liberal use of helper tables. This helps to compartmentalise your complex logic and keep your data tables cleaner. Often these tables will contain just a single row, although it depends on the specific use case. But the general idea is that a single purpose built table is used to consolidate and summarise data from one or several data tables.
Example: letās say you need to produce a summary table with month on month totals. The first thing I will do is create a new Glide table and add 12 rows - one for each month of the year. And then I build all (most) of my logic in this table - relations, roll ups, etc. This approach doesnāt necessarily reduce any complexity, but it does make things more manageable.
Hereās a short video to demonstrate what Iām getting at:
Great, great example. You, @Robert_Petitto, @gvalero, @Jeff_Hager and @ThinhDinh (plus others) have been invaluable with tips, ideas and practical Glide examples (how to think in Glide!).
Documentation is light but user experience is rich.
How did you create the inline table comparing year over year? I am assuming this css/rich text and NOT built into Glide.
After watching this video a third time I realize this is exactly what I am trying to achieve.
I would have 3-4 different monthly summaries (mostly count) and an āoverallā roll-up of all the details
Everything I am rolling up is by āgroupedā by date with a ālocationā as a filter (Southwest, Northwest, Rockies, Great Lakes, etc).
How do you decide what goes in a helper table? Do you use local inline filers to do āsecond-levelā filters (like ālocationā). Do you hand craft tables with pre-built rows containing user IDs or locations to simplify reporting?
Actually, I just remembered that I did a tutorial on this a while back, that goes through the entire process step by step. This includes applying dynamic filters to the table, as well as (static) sorting.
