TimeXtender Desktop Q&A

Hi,I have seen clients use Supernatural key fields to create keys between the fact and dimension tables, usually when the logical key is a combination of fields. I have seen these two methods used:The Supernatural field key is created in both the fact and dim table, using the same key store The Supernatural key is created in the dim table, then mapped to the fact table with a conditional lookupIs there a difference in performance here? Is there a best practice to advocate for? 

Hi Support, We first raised this problem/bug back in Feb 2022. It seems that the incremental rules are not working correctly. The client Xandor had removed these incremental rules from their Live system some time ago but re-introduced them this month, and have failed. The problem seems to be related to using multiple incremental rules e.g. 'MODIFIEDDATETIME > (Last Max Value) - 3600 seconds & TRANSDATE > (Last Max Value) - 15,552,000 seconds.  Please see attached document for further information on this. The client is currently on version 20.10.30.64 and have TX configured to use SSiS for data transfers.  Do you know if there is a solution to this issue please? Thanks,Kashif 

Hi team I have the following tableAnd I have to create this transformation on incidentGroup Column  CASE    WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 100 AND [incidentTypeID] <= 199 THEN '1XX-Fire'        WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 200 AND [incidentTypeID] <= 299 THEN '2XX-Overpressure, Explosion, Overheat(no fire)'        WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 300 AND [incidentTypeID] <= 399 THEN '3XX-Rescue & Emergency Medical'        WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 400 AND [incidentTypeID] <= 499 THEN '4XX-Hazardous Condition(No Fire)'        WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 500 AND [incidentTypeID] <= 599 THEN '5XX-Service Call'        WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 600 AND [incidentTypeID] <= 699 THEN '6XX-Good Intent Call'        WHEN [incidentTypeID] >= 700 AND [incidentTypeID] <=

Hi team,Are there any documents about the naming convention on the TX project? About Table, View, schemas, etc. The client requests that on the project. RegardsIgnacio   

Hi team I am beginning work with a new client, I created environments development, UAT, and Prod, and after I created Global DataBases DSA and MDW for now.My question is, How I have managed the projects on Global DataBases? Only can I create one project when using Global DataBases or Can I create a lot?Thanks for your helpIgnacio

We are running an environment on two servers. One DEV and one PRD server. The instances are copied from the DEV to PRD server, both ODX and MDW. Apparently the jobs are also copied. After refreshing the list I'm adding jobs to run the production ODX. As we can see below I can choose between both the DEV and PRD ODX's : However. If I select the ODX Just Brands Production / JB NAV / Full Load NAV. It jumps back to ODX Just Brands / JB NAV / Full Load NAV, running the DEV ODX. Why is this?

Our machine runs in UTC+2.00, whilst our Azure databases (by default) run on UTC time. Now when we schedule an ODX Transfer task, the interface let's us schedule these tasks in UTC time. The Execution logs of a transfer task are also in UTC time. However, schedules for execution packages are in local time, UTC 2.00, and therefore there logs are also in UTC 2.00.  I guess my question is, why is this the case? Both the ODX & Execution service are services on the same machine with UTC 2.00. Both the ODX as well as the MDW and the project repo are azure db's in UTC.  Why would one use the machine time and the other the azure db timezone? And is there a way to make them the same other than resetting the machine time to UTC? Version 20.10.37

Hello!I want to experiment a little and check if changing my Max Threads setting can improve execution times. I have one big package which includes multiple other packages as Steps.If I change the Max Threads setting in the main package, do the packages from the included steps inherit this setting, or do I have to manually change the setting for each included step?Side question; I have plenty of data for execution times at 4 threads. My plan is to do three runs at 3, 5 and maybe even 6 threads and compare the averages. Is that a good setup? Thanks.

TX: 6284.1Is there a reason why Lineage generated from the Data Source Explorer in the ODX Server includes the downstream stuff in a DWH instance whereas generating Lineage from a field in a Data Area in the DWH instance does not show the ODX part of the lineage?

Is it absolutely necessary to perform a transfer between environments after an upgrade?Dev, QA and Prod are all sitting on their own server. I have upgraded all 3 to the latest TimeXtender version and all Deployed and executed perfectly. Would I still have to do the “Multiple environment Transfer” or is this not necessary?Upgrade Dev - Deploy, Execute, & Validate all is working.  Upgrade Test - Deploy, Execute, & Validate all is working. Transfer Dev -> Test - Deploy, Execute, & Validate Test to ensure all is working. Upgrade Prod - Deploy, Execute, & Validate all is working. Transfer Test -> Prod - Deploy, Execute, & Validate Prod to ensure all is working

Hi,I have added a new field “PCD_Prev” to my table and populated this field using the LAG function (Custom transformation) Like so:LAG([PCD], 1, '0') OVER (Partition BY [AdministrationID], [ApplicationID] ORDER BY [AcceptanceID] )Now I try to use this field in a case statement of another field, again using Custom transformation, like so:COALESCE(SUM(CASE         WHEN [PCD_Prev] in ('0', 'ka_aa')             THEN 1                 WHEN ([PCD] = 'ka_hb' AND [PCD_Prev] = [PCD] )             THEN 1        ELSE 0          END        ) OVER(partition BY [AdministrationID], [ApplicationID]          ORDER BY [AcceptanceID]        ROWS between unbounded preceding and current row          ), 0)I get an error that I can't use a window frame in another window frame although I don't do it in the same transformation.. Is this standard behavior? Do you have a solution for this?In SSMS

Hi,We are currently trying to figure out the new gen of Timextender, and I’m finding the setup with jobs a bit lacking. Perhaps I’ve just missed something, but here are a few things that bug me. As far as I can understand, the way to go when scheduling in the DW is to set up your execution packages in the execution tab. Then we need to set up a Job that schedules the execution packages. In my trials I intentionally set up a package to fail, and first of all the monitoring view of jobs do not show any information about the error: Jobs monitoringIf I go into the execution log, I can see an error message that essentially just says that the job didn’t succeed.

In this screen:It’s not possible to delete a member. The only way it’s delete the “RLS Setup” and create it again. It’s crazy.. Another crazy situation it’s that if you define a Dynamic RLS Setup and press ok and enter to to see it, it’s lost...

Normally I’m using the default type:Can anyone explain the different behaviors?

I’m facing this issue:This package is scheduled to run every half an hour. On rare occacions the package executes itself as shown on the picture to the left (blue rectangle) and the execution log shows both executions as successful. We would like to know any insight to help us solve this issue.  Some things to consider:At the customer’s request the package is being run from the Task Scheduler.  The execution log does not show any errors as shown in the image above (green rectangle) This is how the retries are setup: The task scheduler showed this warning:

Hi all,I have some customers that are reloading data every x minutes in ODX Server (V20.10.x). This generates a lot of execution log entries. When I open the Execution Log in the ODX Server, it takes a long time. I think that removing old execution logs will improve the speed of opening this execution log overview window. I have no idea if it is possible to delete old execution log entries?Another option could be that the execution log view first shows the datetime range you like to see logs and then opens the overview. 

Hi, I have a SSAS tabular model that is deployed to Azure. The model executes fine most of the time and it take around 3 minutes to complete but sometime it takes long time to finish the execution (running for 12 hours but still not completed, so killed the process instead). So, is there any way to failed the execution if takes over 1 hour? I cannot see any timeout setting for SSAS tabular. I am using version 20.10.22.64Thanks. 

We are facing a performance issue while fetching the data from D365 F&O using CData provider. While fetching a data entity with around 700K records, It was taking around 1:20 mins, now when we execute it, its running for 10+ hours with no response. While executing we noticed a SQL session with bulk insert command from TimeXtender with suspended state. and on the D365 database there are multiple session of batch process to fetch the data based on partition number. Since we are witnessed multiple sessions keeps executing, we would like to understand how the batch size is defined. And how we can customize the batch. Or any other way to set the connection properties which pull’s the data faster.Query for Ref :FROM Table_XXXXXXX T2 WHERE ((((((T2.PARTITION=5637144576) AND ((T2.PARTITION#2=5637144576) OR (T2.PARTITION#2 IS NULL))) AND (T2.PARTITION#3=5637144576)) AND (T2.PARTITION#4=5637144576)) AND (T2.PARTITION#5=5637144576)) AND (T2.PARTITION

I’m importing a table which is supposed to have an integer primary key, but the data is messy and we find things like “6TEST3” or “CREDIT3” in this field. I want to read the table and use this field as an integer, however can’t convert it because of those rows. Is there a way to remove a row if I can’t convert a field value to integer?

In v20.10.43, I’ve come across a bunch of auto-generated views with a _BCV suffix.Are they used for merged (incremental?) loading in the next layer, or what’s the purpose of these views?Why do they need to be redeployed whenever I do a managed deployment?And why does the SQL Clean Up Wizard delete them when they’re being used?(I haven’t tested if this could happen in a v6284.1 MDW)

Hi TimeXtender, We’re seeing the following scenario: We have a execution package ‘A’ that is set up with an usage condition and a next package ‘B’ in the post execution steps.Now, when we manually execute package ‘A’ through the user interface and the usage condition resolves false, the display message appears with this information, package 'A’ won't start as expected and, importantly, the next package 'B’, from the 'Run Package’ setting, won't start as well.However, when the same execution package 'A’ is triggered through the scheduler, we see that even though package 'A’ won't start, because the usage condition returns false, the next package 'B’ in this case does start executing. Is this something you are familiar with or are able to reproduce? Extra information is that package 'B’ doesn't have an usage condition applied and we're running TX 20.10.43.64. Best regards,Luuk Bouman

HelloI am wondering, how can I connect to Zip File? I searched and asked Xpilot and then I get this answer: To connect a Zip file in TimeXtender, you can use the "File" data source type. But I couldnt find File datasource. Has the name changed or is there another method?Best Regards

Hi,To my knowledge it is not possible to setup alerts for errors or warnings on validation rules.However, I read the following on the TimeXtender Sales Hub:"Set up automated alerts to notify you when data quality rules are violated, data quality issues are detected, or executions fail to complete.” (https://coda.io/d/TimeXtender-Sales-Hub_d3yl25w6y3Y/Data-Quality_sueAz#_luZ9c).Does someone know if this is possible, and if so, how? If not this would be a nice idea though! Kind regards,Devin

Hi,I normally use Custom transformation (CASE statements) when I need to populate a field based on multiple conditions, in this case multiple “OR” conditions (Logical disjunction) . It was brought to my attention not to use CASE statements in Custom transformations. So I have below an example using a fixed value transformation but I want to add two conditions to populate only when it is ‘FL’ or ‘OL’. When I add these conditions the conditions are on separate lines but still TX makes an “AND” logic of it so instead of (like ‘FL%’ or like ‘OL%’) it translate it to (like ‘FL%’ & like ‘OL%’). How can I get the “OR” instead of “AND”?   

We are facing an issue with one of our clients in which we built out a UAT environment to promote proper development but have come across an issue where we have a fully built TX Semantic Layer on the production environment, but we do not have it built out for the TX UAT environment. The reason behind this was because the test Qlik Sense environment was not available initially, and we could not successfully execute packages on the TX uat environment, so we decided to work without it on TX uat. Now that we have an operational test Qlik Sense environment, we want to export the semantic layer from TX production to TX uat environment. Is there a way for us to do this in TimeXtender? We are trying to avoid large amount of manual work to build this out on the TX uat environment and we dont want to export project from Prod to UAT as that will override all our work in UAT environment. Prod TX Semantic Layer