Joins: Automatic Identification of Relationship Direction

NateBI

Please add:

1. Automatic identification of relationship direction within a Join tile.
2. An option to amend this relationship direction (where appropriate) within the Join tile. E.G A drop-down with 1-2-1,1-2-Many, Many-2-1, Many-2-Many (inc warning) e.t.c
3. A visible representation of this relationship direction with ERD arrows e.g:

This would ensure:

1. Users consider relationship context when joining tables together - especially those new to data modelling/ETL work.
2. Users to reduce test ETLs / tiles because the automatic ientification would suface issues.

Visual Example (Power BI):

Context:

+ The GUI can get cluttered quickly with multiple tests for multiple joins.

+ Users with less experience tend to forget about relationship direction since it's not a visible quality. They then face cardinality problems and question the join type (left, right, inner, etc) when actually the problem is the invisible changes to the shape of their tables during the ETL and the assumptions made when joining.

NateBI

@AndreaHenderson Let me know your thoughts…

AndreaHenderson

@NateBI This is an interesting idea and I'll look over it with the team. We did introduce a join type configuration menu that allows you to constrain joins to specified types. I recognize this doesn't account for a lot of what you're requesting (it doesn't auto-detect or represent on the canvas), but thought it might be relevant info in case you haven't played with this setting yet. Thanks for submitting your idea, we'll definitely review it.

NateBI

@AndreaHenderson I had missed this feature that's certainly heading in the right direction. I guess the first step would be requiring this field to be selected rather than defaulting to a Many-2-Many selection.