Custom Subject Area Fields

After you pick the primary object and add child objects to a custom subject area, the next train stop in the process is to pick the fields (also called object attributes or just attributes).

If you recall, a subject area is a collection of information from your database, and analytics are snapshots and measurements of that information. Picking the fields is the part of the process where you build that collection of information in your subject area. When you're later using this subject area to design an analytic, you will be able to choose from the set of fields that you included in this step.

Where Fields Come From

The fields that you can pick belong to the primary object and any child objects that you added in the previous train stop. You can also add fields from objects that are related to the primary object.

Tip: Fields represent a column of information contained in an object. When you build your analytics in BI Composer, you build them by adding columns. Columns and fields in relational database terms are the same thing.

Types of Fields You Can Add

There are different types of fields in your applications. You can add most of these types to custom subject areas. Here's what you can add:

• Text

• Number

• Date

  Keep an eye out for date fields that are canonical date candidates, which are predefined for some standard objects and subject areas, and display with a read-only check mark. Optionally add canonical date fields from the lowest standard object in your custom subject area. This means that, if you later join your custom subject area to a standard subject area in BI Composer, you can create analytics that can drill up and down the date hierarchy.

  For example, maybe users want to see sales commission amounts on their closed opportunities for the quarter, and then drill down to view amounts by week. And maybe they also want to drill up to view amounts by year. This drill down is enabled because the canonical date field in your custom subject area is automatically joined to the standard Time dimension in the standard subject area.

• Percentage

• Date time

• Currency

• Check box

• Fixed choice list

  In your analytics, only the actual user selections are displayed, as text strings.

  It's a good idea to avoid adding multi-select fixed choice list fields to your custom subject areas, since only the first selected values are displayed in analytics, not all selected values.

• Dynamic choice list

  In your analytics, only the actual user selections are displayed, as text strings.

  You can add custom dynamic choice list fields only to custom subject areas, not prebuilt subject areas.

• Long text

Types of Fields That Analytics Answers and BI Composer Supports

Meanwhile, Analytics Answers and BI Composer supports a corresponding set of data types when creating analytics. It's basically the same as the types of fields you can add to a custom subject area in Application Composer. But, there are slight differences in terms of how check box fields and choice list fields in a custom subject area are interpreted.

• Boolean

  Note: Check box fields from your objects are interpreted as Boolean fields on the BI side.If you're using the Boolean data type for fields other than check boxes, then those fields are displayed as either 0 or 1 in your analytics.

• Number

• Currency

• Date

• String

  As mentioned above, fixed choice list and dynamic choice list fields are interpreted as string fields on the BI side.

• Percentage

• Date time

• Long text