[From Wrike] Behind The Scenes of Custom Fields in Wrike Analyze
Hi Community,
Iโm Herine, Wrike Analyze Subject Matter Expert from Support ๐ย I hope my previous post on calculated custom fields came in handy!
Now Iโll show some of the backstage magic and shed a bit of light on the skeleton of Wrike Analyze ๐ I believe you will benefit from reading this piece if:
- You want to report on multiple custom fields or show how they are correlated.
- Youโre looking for some technical background in custom fields analytics.
How custom fields are structured in a data model
Data displayed in Wrike Analyze is stored in analytics databases. Theyโre grouped in data tables that are linked with each other forming quite a complex data model. This is what a data table looks like in the Wrike interface:
โTask Custom Fieldโ is the name of the table, and the dimensions below are its columns. Hereโs what the table looks like in the data model (this view is not available in the Wrike interface):
Data in the rows are unique to each account, but the structure of the table is the same.
Why is the structure important? It explains why itโs not possible to filter a widget by more than one custom field.
For example, letโs say a widget is filtered by a multiselect custom field type. The whole Task Custom Field data table will be filtered to it:
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Now itโs not possible to display anything that falls outside of that green selection. Once the widget is filtered to multiselect custom fields, it will display only them. If, letโs say, โTask Custom Field Date Valueโ is added to the same widget, the widget will show no results since the relevant date fields live in other rows.
Limitations: only one filter per widget
Therefore, itโs not possible to add custom fields as separate columns to a pivot table: the widget needs to be filtered by a field name, and since thereโs just one custom field data table, there can be only one custom field name filter:
Of course, several names can be added to the same filter, but that will just add more rows to the same custom field column and will not break it into two:
What can be done to put custom fields in different columns? In my future posts, Iโll share two types of workarounds, depending on the analytics database type of your account.
And as a bonus, hereโs a checklist of a few important things that should be kept in mind when working with custom fields in Wrike Analyze:
- Custom fields should be shared with everyone (fields shared with specific users are not exported to Wrike Analyze).
- There is a separate custom field data table for each level: one for tasks, and one for folders/projects. Itโs important to use dimensions from the correct level.
- *There can be just one custom field filter in a widget/board.
- *Only existing values live in custom field tables: itโs not possible to report on blank values.
*These limitations can be avoided, see how in the next posts.
I hope you enjoyed diving into some tech stuff with me!
Herine Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Conosci le straordinarie funzionalitร di Wrike e le best practices
Herine Wrike Team member Conosci le straordinarie funzionalitร di Wrike e le best practices
I understand the technical challenge, but I cannot accept this answer. In a table view you can also display and filter two custom fields. Why can't you do that in the much more powerful analysis tool? The solution cannot be a manual export to Excel.
Marco Nipkow, if you request some of your custom fields to be Dimensions in Wrike Analyze, you can then filter on more than two custom fields in the overall report or within a Widget. We do this all the time with our Wrike Analyze reports.
Hi Kevin Thalacker.Thanks for your quick reply
How I request a custom field to be a dimension? Any hint for me. I'm sorry for this perhaps somewhat stupid question. But I don't really know what you mean.
Marco Nipkow, go to Wrike's "Submit a Request" via their help center. You can then chose an option for Wrike Analyze and Adding Custom Field as a Dimension. There is another box that asks "What are you having trouble with?" This is where you can then specify the custom fields.
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Here's the link to submit a request to Wrike's Support: https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/requests/new ๐
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover