Exploring Data Discovery Options

WebFOCUS Designer provides the ability to create a data flow. You can join data sources based on shared fields to enhance the data available to you. You can then create a chart based on the enhanced data source.

You can only create a data flow when your data source is a Master File. Data flows are unavailable when creating content from a Reporting Object.

To create a data flow, from the WebFOCUS Home Page, on the Action Bar, click the Designer tab or Common tab, then click Chart or Workbook. In the Open dialog box, choose a Master File to use as a data source and click Select. When WebFOCUS Designer opens, click the Data tab, which is located on the lower-left corner of the page. The following image shows the WebFOCUS Designer user interface when creating a data flow.

When creating a data flow, the WebFOCUS Designer toolbar includes a basic set of content creation options, as shown in the following image.

The following table lists and describes the content creation options in the WebFOCUS Designer toolbar when creating a data flow.

Icon	Description
	Application Menu. Opens a menu that you can use to open an existing file, save the current file, save the current file as a new file, and close WebFOCUS Designer.
	Save. Opens the Save dialog box, where you can save the file to a specific location in your environment.
	Undo. Undoes the previous action.
	Redo. Available when you have undone an action. Redoes the last undone action.

Data flows are configured by joining synonyms created for your data sources that contain related data.

Use the Resources tree to select synonyms from your application path that you want to add. Click an application folder to display the available synonyms in that folder. You can also return to the previous folder by clicking the folder name at the top of the tree. The following image shows the Resources tree.

The canvas is the design area. Drag a synonym into the canvas on top of your original data source to join them together. The Join indicator appears, as shown in the following image.

Drop the synonym onto the Join indicator to create a join between the two synonyms. A join object is added to the canvas between the two synonyms. You can right-click the join object or a synonym joined to the original data source and click Delete to remove them from the data flow.

The current state of your data flow is reflected in the Data sheet. The Data sheet shows a data sample in a tabular format similar to a spreadsheet, as shown in the following image.

The Data sheet displays data for the selected item. If you select a synonym, sample data for a selection of fields in the synonym is shown. If you select a join, the values are shown the for the field being joined in each synonym involved. If you click the Join Profiler tab, you can view a join analyzer chart that provides further information about the state of your join. It displays the number of matching values from each part of the join and the total number of values included in the data source as a result of the join.

You can modify the join using the Join profiler, which allows you to change the join type and whether the join is one-to-one or one-to-many. The following join types are available:

• Inner.
• Left Outer.
• Full Join.

You can also edit the join and add or remove join fields. The Join profiler provides a list of suggested joins, including a confidence score based on the number of matching values in the fields. These options allow you to modify your join. The Join profiler is shown in the following image.