Publishing Tables

Since data pipelines can generate many intermediate tables and views useful for validation and process checks but not suitable for final results reporting, PlaidCloud provides a Publish process to help reduce the noise when building Dashboards or pulling data in PlaidXL. The Publish process helps clarify which tables and views are final and reliable for reporting purposes.

Publishing marks which tables and views are final. Only published names reach dashboards, PlaidXL, and downstream tools — the intermediate tables stay out of the way.

Publish

From the Tables tab in a PlaidCloud project configuration, find the table you wish to publish for use in dashboards and PlaidXL. Right-click on the table record and select Set Published Table Reporting Name from the menu.

This will open a dialog where you can specify a unique published name. This name does not need to be the same as the table or view name. Enabling a different name is often useful when referencing data sources in dashboards and PlaidXL because it can provide a friendlier name to users.

Once the table or view is published, its published name will appear in the Published As column in the Tables view.

Note

There are some restrictions on published names. They can be a maximum of 63 characters and do have some restrictions on special characters. This is needed to ensure maximum compatibility with systems, tools, and processes outside of PlaidCloud.

Caution

Row Access. A table can only be published for reporting while none of its columns govern row access. Once a column on a table is declared as governing row access, publishing — or republishing — that table is declined: a published reporting view is read in full by anyone with reporting access, so an unfiltered view of a governed table would bypass the grants. To put a governed table’s data on dashboards, publish it first, then declare row access on it — Row Access restricts the already-published view for each group.

Review Published Table Performance

Published Table Performance is Phase 1 of PlaidCloud’s table-performance autopilot. It monitors how people use published tables and gives you a recommendation; it does not change a table automatically yet. Open Table Optimizer, select a published table, and choose Published Table Performance to see the review.

The review shows whether PlaidCloud has enough current activity to offer guidance, including repeated direct queries and dashboard use. When there is a useful pattern, it identifies columns to consider for a future layout improvement. It also makes clear when no change is needed or when it needs more current activity before reaching a conclusion.

This Phase 1 release is passive: it provides guidance only. If you decide an improvement is worthwhile, plan and apply it through your normal change process. A future Phase 2 release is planned to use this evidence and the same safety checks to apply supported optimizations automatically.

Guidance depends on the data platform and the current activity available for that published table. Where PlaidCloud cannot make a safe assessment, the review explains the limitation instead of presenting a suggestion as certain.

Unpublish

Unpublishing a table or view is similar to the publish process. From the Tables tab in a PlaidCloud project configuration, find the table you wish to publish for use in dashboards and PlaidXL. Right-click on the table record and select Set Published Table Reporting Name from the menu.

When the dialog appears to set the published name, select the Unpublish button. This will remove the table from Dashboard and PlaidXL usage.

The published name will no longer appear in the Published As column.

Renaming

Renaming a table or view is similar to the publish process. From the Tables tab in a PlaidCloud project configuration, find the table you wish to publish for use in dashboards and PlaidXL. Right-click on the table record and select Set Published Table Reporting Name from the menu.

When the dialog appears change the publish name to the new desired name. Press the Publish button to update the name.

The updated name will now appear in the Published As column as well as in Dashboard and PlaidXL.