Understanding properties in a Spotfire analysis
As an analysis author, you can investigate the metadata and learn more about the columns and data tables in your analysis. In the data canvas, you can inspect both automatically created and custom column and data table properties. If you add custom properties, you should also add a description to help others understand what the property is used for.
Column properties
The following column properties are often available by default:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The name is a trimmed and unique
identifier for the column. It is used as the display name for the column in the
user interface.
You can either change the name in the Data in analysis flyout or by editing the column property value in the Data canvas. |
| ColumnType | The type of column.
The following are the mutually exclusive column types: None - no column type defined. Imported - a standard column opened from a file, the clipboard, a data connection or from an information link. Calculated - a column created using the Add calculated column tool. Binned - a column created from another column using the Add binned column tool. Frozen - a Calculated/Binned/Tags/Result column that has been frozen and behaves like an imported column. Result - an output result from a calculation such as a clustering. Tags - a column displaying the used tags of a tag collection. Mask - a temporary column created using the command. This command creates a column with information of whether or not a column was filtered to, the last time the command was applied. There can only be one mask column in each data table. Hierarchy - a predefined hierarchy set up using the Add hierarchy tool. |
| DataType | The type of the values in the column.
The data type of a column cannot be changed directly as a property, but you can usually change it from the expanded Data in analysis flyout, as described in Changing the data type of a column. If this approach for some reason does not work, you can also try to replace the data table with itself and add a transformation step (installed client only) to change the data type. |
| ExternalName | The name of the column in the original data source or view. The purpose of this property is to allow column matching for linked data and add/replace data operations. |
| ExternalId | The globally unique id of the column, if available from the data source. Available for many columns imported via information links, but not all. The property is invalid if the column has no external id. For data connections the external ID contains both the name of the original column in the database and the name of the original data table in the database. |
| IsValid | True if the column expression is valid. The property itself is valid only for calculated and binned columns, and the property value is false if there is a dangling reference in the column expression. |
| Expression | For calculated columns only. Displays the expression used to calculate the column. |
| DerivedExpression | For calculated columns only. Displays the expression used to calculate the column after the pre-processor values have been evaluated. |
| Origin | A text string that describes where the column comes from. Typically set by a data source, or by a tool for a result column. |
| Description | A description of the column entered by an author as an annotation. |
| LinkTemplate | A link template used to create links to a website from the values in a table. For example, the link template can be "http://www.{$}.com", where "{$}" represents the data value from the column. See also Editing data table or column property values. |
| DefaultContinuousColorScheme | The name of the default continuous color scheme that will be used when continuous coloring is applied to this column. If no color scheme is specified, or if the specified color scheme is not available, the Spotfire Continuous color scheme will be used. |
| DefaultCategoricalColorScheme | The name of the default categorical color scheme that will be used when categorical coloring is applied to this column. If no color scheme is specified, or the specified color scheme is not available, the Spotfire Categorical color scheme will be used. |
| ContentType | Each column can have a specified content
type. Renderers use this property as input to know what to display. Use the
form toplevel/subtype, for example, text/plain or image/jpg. For Geometry
columns the content type should be set to application/x-wkb if you want to show
the geometry information as images. If you are using Spotfire to display
chemical structures from an SDFile then the content type should be set to
chemical/x-mdl-molfile for the molfile column.
Note: Do not use a space when specifying the content type.
|
| Keywords | Keywords defined on the column element
can be used when searching for columns with the following syntax:
Keywords:<desired keyword>. For example,
Keywords:Sales.
|
| GeocodingType | Geocoding properties are used when a column can be used to position geographical data on a map. This property specifies the type of geocoding information contained in the column, such as State or City. |
| GeocodingRepresentation | Geocoding properties are used when a column can be used to position geographical data on a map. This property specifies how the geocoding information contained in the column is represented. This can be a language code such as en-us or a standard identifier such as ISO3166-2:us. |
| GeocodingHierarchyName | Geocoding properties are used when a column can be used to position geographical data on a map. This property specifies the name of the geocoding hierarchy that the column belongs to. |
| PreferredAggregationMethod | The name of an aggregation method that is used by the heuristics when an aggregated expression is created from this column. You can change the preferred aggregation method from the expanded Data in analysis flyout. |
| ValidIInsightPredictor | Indicates if this column should be included when calculating recommendations. |
Data table properties
The following data table properties are sometimes available by default:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Keywords for the data table.
When data tables have been added using information links, the keywords defined in Information Designer will be used. |
| Description | A description of the data table.
When data tables have been added using information links, the description defined in Information Designer will be used. |
| ExternalId | The globally unique identifier of the data table in the original data source, if available. |
| MapChart.GeometryType | A string value that defines the type of feature when a geocoding table contains a Geometry (shape) column. The value can be either Point, Line or Polygon. |
| MapChart.IsGeocodingTable | Specifies if the data table is a geocoding table. True or False. |
| MapChart.GeocodingHierarchyName | A string value used to group geocoding tables that belong in the same hierarchy. |
| MapChart.GeocodingHierarchyPriority | An integer value between 0 and 100 (100 being the highest priority) used to control the priority of the hierarchy in which the table is included. A geocoding hierarchy with higher priority will be selected first if two hierarchies result in an equal number of column matches when automatic geocoding is applied. |
| MapChart.GeocodingAutoload | Specifies if a geocoding table should be allowed to be automatically downloaded to the analysis when Spotfire finds out that it can be used as a geocoding table for the current data table. This value can be used to prevent large geocoding tables from being automatically downloaded. This property is important when geocoding tables are saved in the library. True or False. |
| MapChart.GeocodingHierarchyVersion | Specifies the version of the geocoding hierarchy in the form of a date (YYYYMMDD). |
| MapChart.GeographicCrs | Specifies the coordinate reference system describing the data (e.g., "EPSG:4326" for WGS 84). |
| MapChart.IsGeocodingEnabled | Specifies if the geocoding table is currently enabled. This property is important when geocoding tables are saved in the library. True or False. |
| MapChart.ExternalGeographicCrs | Specifies the EPSG code of the projection identified by the shapefile projection web service. In use when the identified projection already exists in the Spotfire list of projections. |
| MapChart.ExternalGeographicProj4Def | Specifies the Proj4 definition generated by the shapefile projection web service. The value stored in this property is used by Spotfire to create a Generated CRS. In use when the shapefile's projection does not already exist in the Spotfire list of projections. |
For more information about geocoding data tables, see Geographic location and geocoding and Specifying new geocoding tables.
Document properties
The best overview of document properties is in the Document properties panel, . See also Adding or editing a document property.
The following document properties are often available by default:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| MaxMissingTimeParts | Specifies the maximum number of missing time parts that should be allowed to be replaced using the Compensate for missing values setting, available in the visualization properties of some visualizations. See Additional operations with time hierarchies for more information. |
| FiscalYearOffset | Specifies the number of months from the
start of the calendar year to the start of the fiscal year. For instance, a
value of -1 specifies that the fiscal year starts in December of the previous
calendar year, whereas a value of 2 specifies that it starts in March of the
current calendar year. If you use any of the
Date and time functions
FiscalMonth,
FiscalQuarter or
FiscalYear in expressions and you leave out
the optional second argument, then the value of this property will be used
instead.
|