Mutiple hypercubes in an extension

[Francis_Kabinoff]

Recently, I needed to make an extension that required multiple hypercubes with dimensions and measures that were able to be set by the user. The following is the solution I came up with. It could be a bit more generalized, and there's some other things to consider such as making selections, but it's a good starting point and an interesting topic, so I wanted to share with you.

Step 1 - Add the hypercubes to initialProperties

The hypercubes need to be added to initialProperties. They can each be added within their own object in initialProperties, as below.

initialProperties: {

  cube1: {

    qHyperCubeDef: {

      qDimensions: [],

      qMeasures: [],

      qInitialDataFetch: [{

        qWidth: 2,

        qHeight: 5000

      }]

    }

  },

  cube2: {

    qHyperCubeDef: {

      qDimensions: [],

      qMeasures: [],

      qInitialDataFetch: [{

        qWidth: 2,

        qHeight: 5000

      }]

    }

  }

}

Step 2 - Add ability for user to define dimensions and measures in definition

Now, you'll need to add the ability for users to define the dimensions and measures for each cube into the properties panel.

definition: {

  type: "items",

  component: "accordion",

  items: {

    cube1props: {

      label: "Cube 1",

      type: "items",

      items: {

        dimension: {

          label: "Dimension",

          type: "string",

          expression: "always",

          expressionType: "dimension",

          ref: "cube1props.dimension"

        },

        measure: {

          label: "Measure",

          type: "string",

          expression: "always",

          expressionType: "measure",

          ref: "cube1props.measure"

        },

      }

    },

    cube2props: {

      label: "Cube 2",

      type: "items",

      items: {

        dimension: {

          label: "Dimension",

          type: "string",

          expression: "always",

          expressionType: "dimension",

          ref: "cube2props.dimension"

        },

        measure: {

          label: "Measure",

          type: "string",

          expression: "always",

          expressionType: "measure",

          ref: "cube2props.measure"

        }

      }

    }

  }

}

Step 3 - Updating the hypercube with user defined properties

This is where the interesting stuff happens. When the user updates one of the properties associated with a hypercube, we need to actually update the hypercube to reflect that. So in the extension's controller, we're going to watch for changes to the props for a cube, and then use the Backend API ApplyPatches method to update the cube.

//Set cube1

$scope.$watchCollection("layout.cube1props", function(props) {

  $scope.backendApi.applyPatches([

    {

      "qPath": "/cube1/qHyperCubeDef/qDimensions",

      "qOp": "replace",

      "qValue": JSON.stringify([{qDef: {qFieldDefs: [props.dimension]}}])

    },

    {

      "qPath": "/cube1/qHyperCubeDef/qMeasures",

      "qOp": "replace",

      "qValue": JSON.stringify([{qDef: {qDef: props.measure}}])

    }

  ], false);

});

//Set cube2

$scope.$watchCollection("layout.cube2props", function(props) {

  $scope.backendApi.applyPatches([

    {

      "qPath": "/cube2/qHyperCubeDef/qDimensions",

      "qOp": "replace",

      "qValue": JSON.stringify([{qDef: {qFieldDefs: [props.dimension]}}])

    },

    {

      "qPath": "/cube2/qHyperCubeDef/qMeasures",

      "qOp": "replace",

      "qValue": JSON.stringify([{qDef: {qDef: props.measure}}])

    }

  ], false);

});

That'll do it. Now the user can define a dimension and measure for each hypercube, and the hypercube will be patched accordingly. There's still some more to think about and some nice-to-have's with this approach, such as the ability to add variable numbers of dimensions and measures, allowing the user to set other properties of the hypercube, selections, and more. But, I think this pattern is a decent starting point.

Here's a link to a github repo I started around this idea, just in case you try this out and have anything cool to add.

GitHub - fkabinoff/qliksense-multicube-extension-template