Monday, June 12, 2017

Visualizing Data Dictionary

This is another attempt at visualizing database data dictionary. Comparing to an earlier effort, this time we added views on the foreign key relationship between the tables.

There are two major objectives in this viz design:
- Providing search to table descriptions
- Visualizing foreign key reference relationship

Here we are using the Tableau server repository data dictionary as the example. The dictionary is evolving along time. It may be quite different from what I have in the dashboard.

Following are a few screenshots from the viz.

1.The main interface for dictionary lookup.
2.Click on any foreign key to view its referenced table.
3.The foreign key relationship matrix
4.A few stats on the tables
As always, click the images for the interactive version.

Feel free to leave comments and let me know how this can be improved.
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19 comments:

  1. Mark WuJune 16, 2017 at 9:36 PM

    Very nice and super helpful. Thank you very much Alex

    ReplyDelete
  2. Covid Home ExperienceJune 17, 2017 at 1:15 PM

    Very Nice Work!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 25, 2017 at 8:58 AM

    tHANKS FOR SHARING !

    ReplyDelete
  4. Y MedinaSeptember 13, 2018 at 2:31 PM

    Last year I say a tutoria of how you did this. I cannot find that page anymore. Is that not available? thanks so much for sharing..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alexander MouSeptember 14, 2018 at 12:35 PM

      Maybe this one http://vizdiff.blogspot.com/2017/02/tableau-server-data-dictionary-in-viz.html

      Delete
  5. UnknownApril 26, 2019 at 4:18 AM

    Thank you for sharing, can you show us how the underlying datamodel looks like? I.e what tables from the Tableau data dictionary are you using?

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownApril 26, 2019 at 4:20 AM

    Thank you for sharing, great stuff! Can you show us what the underlying data model looks like? I.e Which tables are you using from the Tableau data dictionary?

    ReplyDelete
  7. JacMay 12, 2019 at 11:00 PM

    hi how do you create the reset button to reset the wildcard search to empty

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alexander MouMay 13, 2019 at 12:20 PM

      Once published to the web server, on top-left corner, there is a button called "Revert" which allows you to reset.

      Delete
  8. JacMay 12, 2019 at 11:00 PM

    How do create the reset button to empty out the previous wildcard search ?

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownJanuary 13, 2021 at 9:48 PM

    Is the link broken? I cannot download the viz.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alexander MouJanuary 13, 2021 at 10:10 PM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Alexander MouJanuary 13, 2021 at 10:11 PM

      Try again. Click on the image. Thanks for the alert. It was broken.
      https://public.tableau.com/profile/a.m.5517#!/vizhome/DataDictionaryViz/DataDictionary

      Delete
    3. UnknownJanuary 14, 2021 at 7:56 AM

      Thanks for the link. It is working fine. Beautiful work.

      Delete
  10. UnknownFebruary 10, 2022 at 7:58 PM

    How can we create this one alex

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousMay 20, 2024 at 10:02 PM

    Wonderful!!! Question: What versions does the dictionary apply to ? (I know the dictionary has evolved over the last few years). Maybe add it as text to the viz. Also the Data dictionary source link is broken. (Tableau probably moved things again)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alexander MouMay 30, 2024 at 3:06 PM

      This is published in 2017. So the model is from 2017. Yes the model has evolved. This is just a framework of visualizing the dictionary behind. If you have a new model, the simplest thing we can wish for, is to replace the data source. Otherwise, you may need to tweak the dashboard and make it yours.

      Delete