I want to group together common metrics/dimensions in my Explores.

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

Description: What is it?

I want to be able to add dimension_groups or metric_groups to my Explores.

These groups would appear in Lightdash in my Explore and override the default flat-list of dimensions and metrics in the sidebar.

e.g. user_name, user_country, user_age, user_gender are all grouped together in a drop down group called user demographics

Problem: What problem does this solve?

It's hard to navigate through all of the metrics + dimensions in an Explore and know which are related to each other (or even relevant!)

What: Roughly, what does this look like in the product?

In your YAML, you'd write:

columns:
  - name: user_id
    meta:
      dimension:
        group_label: "User attributes"
      metrics:
        count_distinct_user_ids:
          type: count_distinct
          group_label: "User attributes"

• You would define dimension/metric groups in your YAML file, then these would appear in the sidebar as a toggle-list.
• You can search for these groups
• If I have a date/timestamp toggled dimension, it is still a toggle inside of the group toggle (basically, toggles can be nested - but only for dates)
• a column can only be included in a single group (not many groups)

Wireframe here:
https://www.figma.com/proto/Mhuwki1Bj1akQIwPyr1gWw/Lightdash-product?node-id=5533%3A89295&scaling=min-zoom&page-id=5438%3A86217&starting-point-node-id=5533%3A89295&show-proto-sidebar=1
Hi-fidelity designs coming soon, but first step is to add the groups in, similar to how we deal with date and time groups.

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

@PriPatel quick question about this one.

Let's say I have a dimension user_id that I've added to the group User Details. I have a metric, count_user_ids that I've also added to the group User Details.

Does that mean that we have two groups appear in the sidebar:

• One group in metrics for User Details
• one group in the dimensions for User Details

Basically, what's the behaviour if you have a dimension + metric in the same group?

^I'm going to say that having a metric + dimension allowed to be in the same group is a requirement. The question now is how we actually display this

[PriPatel]

@TuringLovesDeathMetal
good point! yeah i think i will play around!
So the hierarchy could be:

Metrics > Group 1 > the metrics

or
Group 1 > Metrics > the metrics

Its a good opportunity to change the way we display these. I guess my only concern now is custom metrics!

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

@PriPatel I'd almost be tempted to "pull out" the dimensions + metrics that are in your results table to the top of the list of dimensions + metrics.

Then you'd have custom metrics right below those fields

Then the rest of the fields below there.

^This might be a bit complicated to navigate though 😅 I'd have to play around with it a bit to see

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

Also maybe having a way to only navigate dimensions or metrics at one time (using tabs or a drop-down filtering option) which is like "show me just metrics", "show me just dimensions" or "show me all fields"

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

aaaaanyways - the sidebar is an ever-evolving thing haha

[PriPatel]

😅 agreed !

[PriPatel]

An experiment:

I thought that if youre picking filters from a dropdown, whats wrong with picking the fields from a dropdown in the first place?

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

ooh interesting!

Personally, I like to see a list of all of the fields (in the same way that filters give you auto-suggestion for the available fields). Mostly because a drop-down list of all of the fields in my table and in the joined table could be a bit overwhelming...

With filters, i'll normally go from the sidebar or from a table value to select a filter (I rarely manually type it in)

maybe something worth prototyping + talking to users about 👀

[hamzahc1]

Had another request from a user on a call yesterday around them wanting to be able to group common metrics together in the explore view. Their idea was that they should be able to group the ones they want together and scan through that way.

[hamzahc1]

Is there anything wrong right now with visually grouping these the same way we group the date/time dimensions? I suspect that'll be the easiest way initially to group them in the sidebar!

[12ian34]

I'd agree with visually grouping selected items at the top.

[TuringLovesDeathMetal]

@hamzahc1 yes, as long as we don't let people mix metrics/dimensions together into groups.

Otherwise, we need to try to think about how we communicate whcih fields are metrics vs. dimensions within the groups.

Does that make sense?

[canny]

This issue has been linked to a Canny post: I want to group together common metrics/dimensions in my Explores. 🎉

[PriPatel]

@TuringLovesDeathMetal
We're in agreement on this wireframe. Hi-fidelity designs coming soon but we have enough for an engineer to get started on a POC at least! We should start off by visually grouping items in the same way we group date/time dimensions!

I'll update the description of this ticket and remove the design tag from this.

[github-actions]

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 0.181.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• 0.181.0
• GitHub release

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