Power BI - Dynamically generate queries - analytics

I'm using Power BI desktop to import data from an Azure Blob, and then generate some queries to share on the online portal. One of my intermediate queries generates a table of [name][table] like:
Query: ALL TABLES
name | table
--------------
name1 | Table1
name2 | Table2
name3 | Table3
The names are unique (grouped by name in previous query step), and the table links all point to a table I want to use in a new query. Currently I'm having to manually generate new queries from each Table, and then apply a custom query function on the query source to get the desired final query to export, eg.:
Query: NAME1
let
Source = #"ALL TABLES",
#"Name1" = DoSomething(Source, 0)
in
#"Name1"
Query: NAME2
let
Source = #"ALL TABLES",
#"Name2" = DoSomething(Source, 1)
in
#"Name2"
etc.
This is ok for now as we're setting up, we don't have that many entries. However as soon as we start putting real data into the Azure Blob the number of rows and queries we need to generate will start growing, and doing it by hand is un-manageable.
Ideally I'd be able to add a last step to the ALL TABLES query, that goes through all the rows and generates new queries from the tables in them. This list will also potentially change with each update, so ideally this should automatically generate the new queries when the data is reloaded form the Azure Blob.
Is there a way to do this from a Power BI query? Alternatively, does anyone where I might look on how to make an external script generate this on a power BI project (say, an automated script run daily from our build server)?

For truly dynamic environments like the one you're describing I would recommend you use a direct query source like azure SQL to load your data. When you do that the schema changes on your back end are immediately available to your users without needing to recreate queries.
If you continue down the route you're on, there is no purely automatic way to add new queries to your Power BI desktop files. When you add a new event, you'll need to edit your file, add the new query and ensure it is added to the data model.

Related

Get audit history records of any entity record as per CRM view

I want to display all audit history data as per MS CRM format.
I have imported all records from AuditBase table from CRM to another Database server table.
I want this table records using SQL query in Dynamics CRM format (as per above image).
I have done so far
select
AB.CreatedOn as [Created On],SUB.FullName [Changed By],
Value as Event,ab.AttributeMask [Changed Field],
AB.changeData [Old Value],'' [New Value] from Auditbase AB
inner join StringMap SM on SM.AttributeValue=AB.Action and SM.AttributeName='action'
inner join SystemUserBase SUB on SUB.SystemUserId=AB.UserId
--inner join MetadataSchema.Attribute ar on ab.AttributeMask = ar.ColumnNumber
--INNER JOIN MetadataSchema.Entity en ON ar.EntityId = en.EntityId and en.ObjectTypeCode=AB.ObjectTypeCode
--inner join Contact C on C.ContactId=AB.ObjectId
where objectid='00000000-0000-0000-000-000000000000'
Order by AB.CreatedOn desc
My problem is AttributeMask is a comma separated value that i need to compare with MetadataSchema.Attribute table's columnnumber field. And how to get New value from that entity.
I have already checked this link : Sql query to get data from audit history for opportunity entity, but its not giving me the [New Value].
NOTE : I can not use "RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryResponse", because i need to show these data in external webpage from sql table(Not CRM database).
Well, basically Dynamics CRM does not create this Audit View (the way you see it in CRM) using SQL query, so if you succeed in doing it, Microsoft will probably buy it from you as it would be much faster than the way it's currently handled :)
But really - the way it works currently, SQL is used only for obtaining all relevant Audit view records (without any matching with attributes metadata or whatever) and then, all the parsing and matching with metadata is done in .NET application. The logic is quite complex and there are so many different cases to handle, that I believe that recreating this in SQL would require not just some simple "select" query, but in fact some really complex procedure (and still that might be not enough, because not everything in CRM is kept in database, some things are simply compiled into the libraries of application) and weeks or maybe even months for one person to accomplish (of course that's my opinion, maybe some T-SQL guru will prove me wrong).
So, I would do it differently - use RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryRequest (which was already mentioned in some answers) to get all the Audit Details (already parsed and ready to use) using some kind of .NET application (probably running periodically, or maybe triggered by a plugin in CRM etc.) and put them in some Database in user-friendly format. You can then consume this database with whatever external application you want.
Also I don't understand your comment:
I can not use "RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryResponse", because i need to
show these data in external webpage from sql table(Not CRM database)
What kind of application cannot call external service (you can create a custom service, don't have to use CRM service) to get some data, but can access external database? You should not read from the db directly, better approach would be to prepare a web service returning the audit you want (using CRM SDK under the hood) and calling this service by external application. Unless of course your external app is only capable of reading databases, not running any custom web services...
It is not possible to reconstruct a complete audit history from the AuditBase tables alone. For the current values you still need the tables that are being audited.
The queries you would need to construct are complex and writing them may be avoided in case the RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryRequest is a suitable option as well.
(See also How to get audit record details using FetchXML on SO.)
NOTE
This answer was submitted before the original question was extended stating that the RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryRequest cannot be used.
As I said in comments, Audit table will have old value & new value, but not current value. Current value will be pushed as new value when next update happens.
In your OP query, ab.AttributeMask will return comma "," separated values and AB.changeData will return tilde "~" separated values. Read more
I assume you are fine with "~" separated values as Old Value column, want to show current values of fields in New Value column. This is not going to work when multiple fields are enabled for audit. You have to split the Attribute mask field value into CRM fields from AttributeView using ColumnNumber & get the required result.
I would recommend the below reference blog to start with, once you get the expected result, you can pull the current field value using extra query either in SQL or using C# in front end. But you should concatenate again with "~" for values to maintain the format.
https://marcuscrast.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/dynamics-crm-2011-audit-report-in-ssrs/
Update:
From the above blog, you can tweak the SP query with your fields, then convert the last select statement to 'select into' to create a new table for your storage.
Modify the Stored procedure to fetch the delta based on last run. Configure the sql job & schedule to run every day or so, to populate the table.
Then select & display the data as the way you want. I did the same in PowerBI under 3 days.
Pros/Cons: Obviously this requirement is for reporting purpose. Globally reporting requirements will be mirroring database by replication or other means and won't be interrupting Prod users & Async server by injecting plugins or any On demand Adhoc service calls. Moreover you have access to database & not CRM online. Better not to reinvent the wheel & take forward the available solution. This is my humble opinion & based on a Microsoft internal project implementation.

Creating relationship Neo4J during import if value is 1

Hello all you helpful folks!
I have been tasked with converting our RDBM into a Graph database for testing purposes. I am using Neo4J and have been successful on importing various tables into their appropriate nodes. However, I have run into a slight hiccup when it comes to the department node. Certain department are partnered with a particular department. Within the RDBMS model, this is simple a column named: Is_Partner because this database was originally set up with one partner in mind (Hence the whole: Moving to a Graph database thing).
What I need to do is match all department with the Is_Partner value of 1 and assign a relationship to from the partner who has the value of 1 in Is_Partner and assign it to a specific partner (Edge: ABBR, Value: HR). I have written the script, but it tells me it's successful, but 0 edits are made...
USING PERIODIC COMMIT
LOAD CSV WITH HEADERS FROM "file:///Department.csv" AS row
MATCH (partner:Department {DepartmentID: row.DepartmentID})
WHERE row.IS_PARTNER = "1"
MERGE (partner)-[:IS_PARTNER_OF]->(Department{ABBR: 'HR'});
I'm pretty new to Graph Databases, but I know Relational Databases quite well. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Jim Perry
There are a few problems with your query. If you want to filter on CSV use WITH statement with a WHERE filter. Also you want to MERGE HR department node separately and then MERGE relationship separately.
USING PERIODIC COMMIT
LOAD CSV WITH HEADERS FROM "file:///Department.csv" AS row
WITH row WHERE row.IS_PARTNER = "1"
MATCH (partner:Department {DepartmentID: row.DepartmentID})
MERGE (dept:Department{ABBR: 'HR'}))
MERGE (partner)-[:IS_PARTNER_OF]->(dept);
If it still return no results/changes, check out if your MATCH statement return anything as this is usually the problem.
USING PERIODIC COMMIT
LOAD CSV WITH HEADERS FROM "file:///Department.csv" AS row
WITH row WHERE row.IS_PARTNER = "1"
MATCH (partner:Department {DepartmentID: row.DepartmentID})
RETURN partner

How to transfer only new records between two different databases (ie. Oracle and MSSQL) using SSIS?

Do you know how to transfer only new records between two different databases (ie. Oracle and MSSQL) using SSIS? There is no problem transfering new data only between two tables in the same database and server, but is this possible to do such operation between completely different servers and databases?
Ps. I know about solution using Lookup but it is not very efficient if anybody needs to check and add a lot of records (50k and more) several times per day. I would like to operate with new data only.
You have several options:
Timestamp based solution
If you have a column which stores the insertation time in the source system, you can select only the new records created since the last load. With the same logic, you can transfer modified records too, just mark the records with the timestamp value when it change.
Sequence based solution
If there is a sequence in the source table, you can load the new records based on that sequence. Query the last value from the destination system, then load avarything which is larger than that value.
CDC based solution
If you have CDC (Change Data Capture) in your source system, you can track the changes and you can load them based on the CDC entries.
Full load
This is the most resource hungry solution: you have to copy all data from the source to the destination. If you do not have any column which marks the new records, you should use this solution.
You have several options to achieve this:
TRUNCATE the destination table and reload it from source
Use a Lookup component to determine which records are missing
Load all data from source to a temporary table and write a query which retrieves the new/changed records.
Summary
If you have at least one column, which marks the new/modified records, you can use it to implement a differential/incremental load with SSIS. If you do not have any clue, which columns/rows are changed, you have to load (or at least query) all of them.
There is no solution which enables a one-query (INSERT .. SELECT) solution using multiple servers without transferring all data. (Please note, that a multi-server query using Linked Servers are transfers the data from the source system).
What about variables? Is it possible to use the same variable between different databases and servers in SSIS?
I would like to transfer last id number from a destination table and transfer it to the source table (different server!).
I can set a variable in a database scope like this:
DECLARE #Last int
SET #Last = (SELECT TOP 1 Id FROM dbo.Table_1 ORDER BY Id DESC)
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Table_2
WHERE ID > #Last;
However it works between two tables in the same database (as a SQL command) only. I can create a variable for a entire SSIS package in Variables --> Add variable, but I don't know it is possible to use the variable in a similar way as above - to keep an information about last id in a destination table and pass it to another table on a source server as data limit.

Need a clever way to get orders from all stores while each store is in a different database

The setup
I have the following database setup:
CentralDB
Table: Stores
Table: Users
Store1DB
Table: Orders
Store2DB
Table: Orders
Store3DB
Table: Orders
Store4DB
Table: Orders
... etc
CentralDB contains the users, logging and a Stores table with the name of each store database and general information about each store such as address, name, description, image, etc...
All the StoreDB's use the same structure just different data.
It is important to know that the list of stores will shrink and increase in the future.
The main client communicating with this setup is an API REST Service which gets passed a STOREID in the Header of each request telling it which database to connect to. This works flawlessly so far.
The reasoning
Whenever we need to do database maintenance on one store, we don't want all other stores to be down.
Backup management should be per store
Not having to write the WHERE storeID=x every time and for every table
Performance: each store could run on its own database server if the need arises
The goal
I need my REST API Service to somehow get all orders from all stores in one query.
Will you help me figure out a way to do this without hardcoding all storedb names? I was thinking about a stored procedure on the CentralDB but I was hoping there would be other solutions. In any case it has to be very efficient.
One option would be to have a list of databases stored in a "system" table in CentralDB.
Then you could create a stored procedure that would read the database names from the table, loop through them with cursor and generate a dynamic SQL that would UNION the results from all the databases. This way you would get a single recordset of results.
However, this database design is IMHO flawed. There is no reason for using multiple databases to store data that belongs to the same "domain". All the reasons that you have mentioned can be solved by using a single database with proper database design. Having multiple databases will create multiple problems on the long term:
you will need to change structure of all the DBs when you modify your database model
you will need to create/drop new databases when new stores are added/removed from your system
you will need to have items and other entities that are "common" to all the stores duplicated in all the DBs
what about reporting requirements (e.g. get sales data for stores 1 and 2 together, etc.) - this will require creating complex union queries...
etc...
On the long term, managing and maintaining this model will be a big pain.
I'd maintain a set of views that UNION ALL all the data. Every time a store is added or deleted those views must be updated. This can be automated.
The views provide an illusion to the application that there is only one database.
What I would not do is have each SQL query or procedure query all the database names and create dynamic SQL. That would entail lots of code duplication and an unnecessary loss of performance. This approach is error prone. Better generate code once in a central place and have all other SQL code reference that generated code.

Insert data from another DB in tables

I'm having some issue here. Let me explain.
So I was about done with migration of this project and I've decided to run the test suite to make sure the logic was still working as expected. Unfortunately, it didn't... but that's not the issue.
At the end of the suite, there was a nice script that execute a delete on the datas of 5 tables of our developement database. That would be fine if there was also a script to actually populate the database...
The good side is that we still have plenty of data in production environement, so I'm looking for a way and/or possibly a tool to extract the data on these 5 particular tables in production and insert them in dev environement. There is all sort of primary and foreign key between these tables, maybe auto-increment fields, (and also A LOT of data) that's why I don't want to do it manually.
Our database is db2 v9 if it makes any difference. I'm also working with SQuirreL, there might be a plugin, but I haven't found yet.
Thanks
This is sort of a shot in the dark, as I've never used db2, but from previous experience, my intuition immidiately says "Try csv". I'm willing to bet my grandmother you can import / export csv-files in your software ( why did i just start thinking of George from Seinfeld? )
This should also leave you with FKs and IDs intact. You might have to reset your auto increment value to whatever is appropriate, if need be. That, of course, would be done after the import
In addittion, csv files are plaintext and very easily manipulated should any quirks show their head.
Best of luck to you!
Building on Arve's answer, DB2 has a built-in command for importing CSV files:
IMPORT FROM 'my_csv_file.csv'
OF del
INSERT INTO my_table
You can specify a list of columns if they are not in the default order:
IMPORT FROM 'my_csv_file.csv'
OF del
-- 1st, 2nd, 3rd column in CSV
METHOD P(1, 2, 3)
INSERT INTO my_table
(foo_col, bar_col, baz_col)
And you can also specify a different delimiter if it's not comma-delimited. For example, the following specifies a file delimited by |:
IMPORT FROM 'my_csv_file.csv'
OF del
MODIFIED BY COLDEL|
-- 1st, 2nd, 3rd column in CSV
METHOD P(1, 2, 3)
INSERT INTO my_table
(foo_col, bar_col, baz_col)
There are a lot more options. The official documentation is a bit hairy:
DB2 Info Center | IMPORT command
Do you have access to the emulator? there's a function in the emulator that allows you to import CSV into tables directly.
Frank.
Personally, I am not aware of any automated tools that can "capture" a smaller subset of your production data into a test suite, but in my day, I was able to use QMF and some generic queries to do just that. It does require forward planning / analysis of your table structures, parent-child dependencies, referential integrity and other things.
It did take some initial work to do, but once it was done, I was able to use, and re-use these tools to extract several different views of production data for my testing purposes.
If this appeals to you, read on.
On a high-level view, you could do this:
Determine what the key column names are.
Create a "keys" table for them.
Write several queries to look for your test conditions and populate the keys_table.
Once you are satisfied that keys_table has a satisfactory subset of keys, then you can use your created tools to strip out the data for you.
Write a generic query that joins the keys_table with that of your production tables and export the data into flat files.
Write a proc to do all the extractions / populations for you automatically.
If you have access to QMF (and you probably do in a DB2 shop), you may be able to do something like this:
Determine all of the tables that you need.
Determine the primary indexes for those tables.
Determine any referential integrity requirements for those tables.
Determine Parent - Child relationships between all the tables.
For the lowest level child table (typically the one with most indexes) note all the columns used to identify a unique key.
With the above information, you can create a generic query to strip out a smaller subsection of production data, for #5. In other words, you can create a series of specific queries and populate a small Key table that you create.
In QMF, you can create a generic query like this:
select t.*
from &t_tbl t
, &k_tbl k
where &cond
order by 1, 2, 3
In the proc, you simply pass the tablename, keys, and condtions variables. Once the data is captured, you EXPORT the data into some filename.
You can create an EXPORT_TABLE proc would look something like this:
run query1 (&&t_tbl = students_table , &&k_tbl = my_test_keys ,
+ &&cond = (t.stud_id = k.stud_id and t.course_id = k.course_id)
export data to studenttable
run query1 (&&t_tbl = course_table , &&k_tbl = my_test_keys ,
+ &&cond = (t.cour_id = k.cour_id
+ (and t.cour_dt between 2009-01-01 and 2010-02-02)
export data to coursetable
.....
This could capture all the data as needed.
You can then create an IMPORT_TEST proc to do the opposite:
import data from studenttable
save data as student_table (replace = yes
import data from coursetable
save data as course_table (replace = yes
....
It may take a while to create, but at least you would then have a re-useable tool to extract your data.
Hope that helps.

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