Dimensionality Hints

The formula bar provides hints that help you improve performance and understand automatic adjustments that Pigment has made on your formulas.

In some cases it warns about missing or unnecessary Dimensions, so that you can take appropriate action. In other cases it helps users’ understanding by providing context.

This page covers hints flagging Dimension misalignment. For other kinds of hints, see Explanatory Hints and Performance Improvement Hints (coming soon).

Find the hints

Hints are available when the ⨍  indicator next to the formula bar turns yellow or a light bulb appears. See the example below.

When the ⨍  turns yellow, you need to take action

If your formula’s output requires Dimensions that were not specified in the Metric’s structure, the ⨍ indicator turns yellow. For example, if the formula in your Metric references data that is by Month and Product and your Metric’s structure is set to only Product, the indicator turns yellow.

It could also turn yellow if the formula’s output is only Product but your Metric has both the Month and Product Dimensions in its structure.

Select the hint. An Automatic Formula Dimensions Adjustment pop-up opens giving information on whether Dimensions need to be added or removed.

When Adding a Dimension

Sometimes your Metrics have Dimensions used in their structure that are not part of the output of the formula.

For example, if your formula’s output has Month and Country as Dimensions but your Metric’s structure is Month, Country, and Product, the Product Dimension is automatically added to the formula’s output to match the Metric’s structure.

This is done by using the same behavior as [ADD Constant: Dimension] modifier which essentially adds the Dimension and adds the values consistently across them.

In the example above, you'd see a Metric with Country and Month at the top. The Metric below has a structure of Country, Month, and Product. The Country, Month and Product Metric’s formula references the first Metric and therefore the formula’s output is by Country and Month.

Because Products was not included in the output of the formula, Pigment added it automatically. After adding the Product Dimension, it uses the Constant allocation method, meaning that the value is applied consistently across all products.

For example, look at the Country and Month Metric and find the cell for the United States in Jan 24. The value is 5. In the Country, Month and Product Metric, you can see that same value of 5 was added to each of the different products consistently.

ℹ️ Note

When adding a formula that does not have any Dimensions, such as TRUE or BLANK, the hints appear because the engine has added the Dimensions of the Metric to account for all cells.

When Removing a Dimension

A Dimension is removed when that Dimension isn’t part of the Metric structure but is referenced or included in the formula.

For example, if your formula’s output has Month and Country as Dimensions, but your Metric’s structure is just Country. The Month Dimension is automatically removed and the totals reflect that the Dimension was removed.

This is done by using the same behavior as [REMOVE SUM: Month] which removes the Dimension and sums the value from that Dimension.

In this example, you can see the Metric on the bottom has the Country and Month Dimensions as its structure. This is our source Metric, as it is referenced by the two Metrics above. The two different Metrics above have one by Country and another by Month. Both Metrics at the top have the same formula referencing the Country and Month Metric, therefore there is a discrepancy between formula output and structure.

The pop-up shows the following for the Country Metric:

“Automatic adjustments were made because the formula output structure is different from the Metric structure. 1 dimension was removed- Month”

The pop-up shows the following for the Month Metric:

“Automatic adjustments were made because the formula output structure is different from the Metric structure. 1 dimension was removed- Country”

In both of these examples, the data from the removed Dimensions is summed and that value is provided. You can see for the Month Metric, it’s taking the total or summed value for each month, highlighted in green. In the Country Metric, its taking the summed value across every month, highlighted in red.

You can adjust the Dimensions of all of these formula outputs by using Modifiers.