Formatting your fields

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Formatting your fields in your .yml files

Sometimes the format of things in your dbt project is different to how you want it to look in Lightdash. That’s okay! We’ve built a bunch of features to help you to format the fields in your dbt project so that the data in your Lightdash project looks exactly like you want it to 🥸

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The metrics and dimensions reference docs

We’re going to go through formatting your fields in more detail below, but you can see a list of these configurations and all of the other properties you can customize for your fields in the dimensions reference doc and metrics reference doc.

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Hiding fields

Sometimes, we have a bunch of columns in our YAML files that we might not want to include in Lightdash. For example, columns with PII data, or the same date data, but at different levels of date granularity.

It’s easy to hide columns from Lightdash. All you need to do is add two words to your column: hidden: true.

In your dbt YAML file, it’ll look something like this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: users
    columns:
      - name: first_name
        meta:
          dimension:
            hidden: true

The same thing goes for metrics:

version: 2
models:
  - name: users
    columns:
      - name: first_name
        meta:
          metrics:
            count_unique_first_names:
              type: count_distinct
              hidden: true

By default, all of your dimensions and metrics have been set to hidden: false.

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Grouping fields in the sidebar

You can group related metrics and dimensions together using the model meta group_details block in combination with the groups property in your .yaml files. You can as well add descriptions to your groups using the property description that will be displayed when hovering over the group label.

For example you might want to group the percentile metrics into two sub categories one being for over 40 percentiles and the other for under 40 percentiles. You can do this by adding the group property to your metrics like so:

version: 2
models:
  - name: events
    meta:
      group_details:
        events:
          label: Events
          description: Event-related fields.
        percentile:
          label: Percentiles
          description: Grouping of percentiles
        sub:
          label: Percentiles under 40
          description: Grouping of percentiles under 40
        over:
          label: Percentiles over 40
          description: Grouping percentiles over 40
    columns:
      - name: event_id
        description: ''
        meta:
          dimension:
            type: number
            groups: ['events']
          metrics:
            percentile_25:
              type: percentile
              percentile: 25
              groups: ['percentile', 'sub']
            percentile_50:
              type: percentile
              percentile: 50
              groups: ['percentile', 'over']
            percentile_75:
              type: percentile
              percentile: 75
              groups: ['percentile', 'over']

You can use groups across metrics and dimensions. In the sidebar, your metrics will get grouped together under your label in the metrics section, and your dimensions will get grouped together under your label in the dimensions section.

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Adding custom descriptions

Dimensions

By default, Lightdash pulls in the descriptions you’ve included for your dimensions. But, you can override the description you see in Lightdash using the description property.

version: 2
models:
  - name: users
    columns:
      - name: user_id
        description: "Id generated by the Lightdash API on user's first login. On legacy systems, SHA64. On new systems since 2012, FARM_FINGERPRINT()"
        meta:
          dimension:
            description: 'Unique identifier for a user'

You can see the descriptions of your dimensions when you hover over the fields in Lightdash.

Metrics

If you don’t add a custom description for your metric, Lightdash will show a description for you in the app, by default. To override this default description, you can use the description property.

version: 2
models:
  - name: users
    columns:
      - name: user_id
        description: "Id generated by the Lightdash API on user's first login. On legacy systems, SHA64. On new systems since 2012, FARM_FINGERPRINT()"
        meta:
          metrics:
            count_unique_users:
              type: count_distinct
              description: 'Count the unique number of user IDs'

Check out this doc to see all of the other properties you can customize for metrics.

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Renaming fields

Sometimes, the labels we use for the fields in our dbt project aren’t very user friendly. We might want to change these in Lightdash, and we can!

To change the name you’ll see for your field in Lightdash, you just use the label property.

So, if I had a field user_id_sha64, I could relabel it to User ID.

version: 2
models:
  - name: users
    columns:
      - name: user_id_sha64
        meta:
          dimension:
            label: 'User ID'

Same thing goes for metrics!

version: 2
models:
  - name: users
    columns:
      - name: user_id_sha64
        meta:
          metrics:
            count_unique_user_ids:
              type: count_distinct
              label: 'Total users'

Check out this doc to see all of the other properties you can customize for dimensions, and this one for all of the other properties you can customize for your metrics.

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Rounding

Rounding your metrics is easy to do using the format property in your YAML file.

Here’s an example of how different rounding will affect your numbers:

Rounding dimensions

Like this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: sales
    columns:
      - name: revenue
        meta:
          dimension:
            format: '0.00'

Rounding metrics

Like this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: sales
    columns:
      - name: revenue
        meta:
          metrics:
            total_revenue:
              type: sum
              format: '0.00'

Check out this doc to see all of the other properties you can customize for metrics.

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Compacting big numbers

Here’s an example of how different compacting will affect your numbers:

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Compact dimensions

Like this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: sales
    columns:
      - name: revenue
        meta:
          dimension:
            format: '0," K"'

As an example, this option will compact the number value from 1,500 to 1.50K.

Check out this doc to see all the other compact values. to see all the other formatting options.

Compact metrics

Like this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: sales
    columns:
      - name: revenue
        meta:
          metrics:
            total_revenue:
              type: sum
              format: '0.00,,," B"'

As an example, this option will compact the number value from 1,500,000,000 to 1.50B.

Check out this doc to see all the other formatting options.

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Add units to your values

Some columns need a special format to convey what units they’re in. For example, if you’re a global company, and you have a revenue field. Is that in GBP? USD?

In Lightdash, you can use the format label to add units to your fields.

Here’s an example of how different formats will affect your values:

Add units to dimensions

You can add a format to your dimensions this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: sales
    columns:
      - name: revenue
        meta:
          dimension:
            format: '[$£]#,##0.00'

To see which format types are available for dimensions, check the reference docs here.. Check out this doc to see all of the other properties you can customize for dimensions.

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Add units to metrics

You can add a format to your metrics this:

version: 2
models:
  - name: sales
    columns:
      - name: revenue
        meta:
          metrics:
            total_revenue:
              type: sum
              format: '[$£]#,##0.00'

To see which format types are available for metrics, check the reference docs here.Check out this doc to see all of the other properties you can customize for metrics.

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Formatting your fields in the Lightdash UI

You can also format your fields in the Lightdash UI. This is useful if you want to format your fields quickly without having to change your YAML files.

Currently you can format 2 types of fields in the Lightdash UI:

• Custom metrics (reference)

• Table calculations (reference)

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Formatting metrics

You can adjust the formatting of your pre-defined metrics from the results table.

You can customize the formatting of your custom metrics when you create them, and later on from the results table.

These are the formatting options available:

• percent: Formats your metric as a percentage, with the following options:

  • round value to your metric to round it to a certain number of decimal places

  • separator, e.g. from . to ,

• currency: Formats your metric as a currency

  • round value to your metric to round it to a certain number of decimal places

  • separator, e.g. from . to ,

  • currency symbol, e.g. from $ to £

  • compact value to compact your metric to a certain unit, e.g. from 1,000,000 to 1M

• number: Formats your metric as a number

  • round value to your metric to round it to a certain number of decimal places

  • separator, e.g. from . to ,

  • compact value to compact your metric to a certain unit, e.g. from 1,000,000 to 1M

  • prefix value to add a prefix to your metric, e.g. + or -

  • suffix value to add a suffix to your metric, e.g. %

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Formatting table calculations

On the results table, you can add a table calculation by clicking on the button on the right hand side of the section.

Once you’ve created your table calculation, you can format it by clicking on the Format tab:

You can then choose from the following formatting types:

• percent: Formats your metric as a percentage, with the following options:

  • round value to your metric to round it to a certain number of decimal places

  • separator, e.g. from . to ,

• currency: Formats your metric as a currency

  • round value to your metric to round it to a certain number of decimal places

  • separator, e.g. from . to ,

  • currency symbol, e.g. from $ to £

  • compact value to compact your metric to a certain unit, e.g. from 1,000,000 to 1M

• number: Formats your metric as a number

  • round value to your metric to round it to a certain number of decimal places

  • separator, e.g. from . to ,

  • compact value to compact your metric to a certain unit, e.g. from 1,000,000 to 1M

  • prefix value to add a prefix to your metric, e.g. + or -

  • suffix value to add a suffix to your metric, e.g. %