Yes earlier in the product life the "Group By" operator didn't exist and all that was available was "Rollup" and "Job Rollup". "Job Roll Up" behaved similar to the current "Group By" operator however it could only be used on backup job related data (it required certain fields to be available to make it work).
Someone then raised an ehancement request to have the grouping functionality of the "Job Rollup" operator available for any type of data. This resulted in the "Group By" operator being introduced.
It may be possible to get your report to work with the "Rollup" operator however from your description I think the "Group By" is a better fit to what you need.
When I write reports I tend to use the Group By operator. In your example of summing up numbers based on some other fields the key difference between the 2 operators is:
Rollup - will not make any new fields key fields, will remove/drop the fields you select to roll-up on, will carry out the numeric behavior you select on the remaining non-key numeric fields
Group By - whatever fields you select to group by will become the new key fields, no fields are removed/dropped, all other previous key fields that are not being grouped by will become non-keys, will carry out the duration/numeric/percent/string field behavior you select on all non-key fields
If I want to drop fields then I either:
1. - drop them on the fields tab if they are a non-key field
- use a SetKey operator to make them non-key if they are key and then drop them as above
2. - use a Group By operator to group by all the fields I want to be key fields
- then drop the non-key fields I don't want using the fields tab
Would you be able to create a word doc with some screenshots and text explaining the issue and attach it to a reply on here? I can then take a look and hopefully explain what you are seeing and how to resolve it.
Do you have any suggestions for cases in which Rollup doesn't roll up records that have identical keys? It's as if there are invisible key fields that aren't identical, perhaps the "Noticed" field or a column that was previously dropped?
We're a TSM shop. That means the "Archive Flag" in "Backup Job Details" is meaningful for us.
I'm trying to total up the amount of data backed up by each client over a time interval, differentiating by Sub Name, Client, Status, and Archive Flag. I want the Size column to be a sum.
"Backup Job Details" has eleven(!) key columns:
Id
App Job Id
Server
Sub Name
Group
Schedule
Client
Job
Domain Name
Backup Set
Queue Start
I add on some columns I care about:
Status
Size
Archive Flag
I use SetKey to remove (set to False) the "Key" attribute from eight of those, so that only Sub Name, Client, and Server Name are Key. Then I use SetKey to make Status and Archive Flag "Key" also. I then add Queue Start back in -- I need to have some Key I can remove in the RollUp. (I later simplified this not to use the SetKey operators to un-set and re-set Queue Start; no difference.)
I get much more than one row for clients that run multiple successful backups (or archives) during the interval.
In some variants, I've "dropped" several non-key fields from the "Fields" tab on the last "SetKey", just before the roll-up. It doesn't seem to matter.
Word file attached (I hope!) to show how botched the output is.
Sorry, I can't attach a Word file, and I can't get the site to take a .JPG or .PNG.
I've gone ahead and done this, but I'm a bit uneasy that I don't understand why I can't get RollUp to work, and I don't understand the relationship between these two stages. I suppose, if I look back in the history of the product, I may come a time when RollUp was all that some folks had, and I might find rejoicing when GroupBy was made available to those folks, but that's just conjecture on my part.
I have this sudden urge to submit a bug report against the documentation (and help files) asking for a note on "RollUp" to note that it's been superseded (mostly?) by GroupBy. At the same time, I'd "encourage" the doc writers to note any similar cases of supersecession or deprecation, if only to avoid confusion and make life easier for us Type A's.
DavidRussell1
141 Posts
0
July 22nd, 2011 00:00
Hi Nick,
Yes earlier in the product life the "Group By" operator didn't exist and all that was available was "Rollup" and "Job Rollup". "Job Roll Up" behaved similar to the current "Group By" operator however it could only be used on backup job related data (it required certain fields to be available to make it work).
Someone then raised an ehancement request to have the grouping functionality of the "Job Rollup" operator available for any type of data. This resulted in the "Group By" operator being introduced.
It may be possible to get your report to work with the "Rollup" operator however from your description I think the "Group By" is a better fit to what you need.
Thanks
David
David Russell
EMC Technical Support
DavidRussell1
141 Posts
1
July 21st, 2011 01:00
Hi Nick,
When I write reports I tend to use the Group By operator. In your example of summing up numbers based on some other fields the key difference between the 2 operators is:
Rollup - will not make any new fields key fields, will remove/drop the fields you select to roll-up on, will carry out the numeric behavior you select on the remaining non-key numeric fields
Group By - whatever fields you select to group by will become the new key fields, no fields are removed/dropped, all other previous key fields that are not being grouped by will become non-keys, will carry out the duration/numeric/percent/string field behavior you select on all non-key fields
If I want to drop fields then I either:
1. - drop them on the fields tab if they are a non-key field
- use a SetKey operator to make them non-key if they are key and then drop them as above
2. - use a Group By operator to group by all the fields I want to be key fields
- then drop the non-key fields I don't want using the fields tab
I hope the above information helps.
Thanks
David
David Russell
EMC Technical Support
DavidRussell1
141 Posts
0
July 21st, 2011 05:00
Hi Nick,
Would you be able to create a word doc with some screenshots and text explaining the issue and attach it to a reply on here? I can then take a look and hopefully explain what you are seeing and how to resolve it.
Thanks
David
David Russell
EMC Technical Support
dplaflamme1
37 Posts
0
July 21st, 2011 05:00
Do you have any suggestions for cases in which Rollup doesn't roll up records that have identical keys? It's as if there are invisible key fields that aren't identical, perhaps the "Noticed" field or a column that was previously dropped?
dplaflamme1
37 Posts
0
July 21st, 2011 08:00
We're a TSM shop. That means the "Archive Flag" in "Backup Job Details" is meaningful for us.
I'm trying to total up the amount of data backed up by each client over a time interval, differentiating by Sub Name, Client, Status, and Archive Flag. I want the Size column to be a sum.
"Backup Job Details" has eleven(!) key columns:
I add on some columns I care about:
I use SetKey to remove (set to False) the "Key" attribute from eight of those, so that only Sub Name, Client, and Server Name are Key. Then I use SetKey to make Status and Archive Flag "Key" also. I then add Queue Start back in -- I need to have some Key I can remove in the RollUp. (I later simplified this not to use the SetKey operators to un-set and re-set Queue Start; no difference.)
I get much more than one row for clients that run multiple successful backups (or archives) during the interval.
In some variants, I've "dropped" several non-key fields from the "Fields" tab on the last "SetKey", just before the roll-up. It doesn't seem to matter.
Word file attached (I hope!) to show how botched the output is.
Sorry, I can't attach a Word file, and I can't get the site to take a .JPG or .PNG.
Baffled,
Nick
DavidRussell1
141 Posts
1
July 21st, 2011 08:00
Hi Nick,
Couldn't you feed the Backup Job Details data source directly into the Group By operator and roll up on:
Server
Sub-Name
Client
Status
Archive
From your description I believe this should give you what you want.
Thanks
David
David Russell
EMC Technical Support
dplaflamme1
37 Posts
0
July 21st, 2011 13:00
I've gone ahead and done this, but I'm a bit uneasy that I don't understand why I can't get RollUp to work, and I don't understand the relationship between these two stages. I suppose, if I look back in the history of the product, I may come a time when RollUp was all that some folks had, and I might find rejoicing when GroupBy was made available to those folks, but that's just conjecture on my part.
I hate not understanding.
dplaflamme1
37 Posts
0
July 22nd, 2011 06:00
I have this sudden urge to submit a bug report against the documentation (and help files) asking for a note on "RollUp" to note that it's been superseded (mostly?) by GroupBy. At the same time, I'd "encourage" the doc writers to note any similar cases of supersecession or deprecation, if only to avoid confusion and make life easier for us Type A's.
Thanks,
Nick