Configure Explore options

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This article applies to the following Customer Insights roles: Developer


Each Explore includes an Options icon located in the right-hand corner of the Explore window. Click that icon, and you’ll see a series of options similar these:

These options are described below.


Save as a Look

Enables you to, well, save the Explore as a Look. Bear in mind that you can only save the Look to spaces where you have the Manage Access, Edit permission; typically that will be your personal space as well as any Custom Reports space you have been granted access to. If you try to save a Look to a space where you don’t have this permission, you’ll receive a warning to that effect, and the Save & View Look button will be unavailable:

The title you give your look must be unique within the Space where it is being saved. However, that title does not have to be unique across Customer Insights: you could have a Look called Demographics in every Space in your organization. (That said, however, giving Looks unique names might be something of a best practice.) Title, by the way are case-insensitive: Demographics is the same title as demographics and the same title as DEMOGRAPHICS.


Save to Dashboard

Enables you to save to the Explore directly to a Dashboard. When you do this, the Explore is saved as a Query Tile and not as a Look. That’s important to note, because Query Tiles are bound to a specific Dashboard. By contrast, Looks can be added to multiple Dashboards, and can be viewed even if they are not part of a Dashboard.

As you might expect, you can only save Looks to Dashboards where you have the Manage Access, Edit permission. If you try to save the Look to a Dashboard where you don’t have this permission the Save to Dashboard button will be unavailable:

Note that tile titles do not have to be unique, even on the same Dashboard; it’s not necessarily recommended, but every single tile on your Dashboard can have the exact same title:


Download

Enables you to download a copy of the data retrieved by the Explore.


Send

Enables you to email a copy of the data retrieved by the Explore.


Save & Schedule

Enables you to schedule delivery of the data (via email).

As you probably noticed, this menu option is labeled Save & Schedule. That’s because you need to save the Explore as a Look before you can schedule it. Why? Well, as we mentioned previously, Explores can’t be saved: you can make as many changes to the Explore as you want, but the moment you leave the page all those changes disappear. You can’t schedule delivery of the data because the Explore that retrieves that data will no longer exist. Therefore, save the Explore as a Look, then schedule data delivery from the Look.

If you click Save & Schedule, you’ll first be shown the Save Look dialog box:

After the Look has been saved, Customer Insights opens the new Look and displays the scheduling dialog box:


Share

Provides two different URLs that can be shared with others, and enable you to view an Explore configured exactly as the Explore you are working on (this is true even if you exit the Explore without saving it as a Look or to a Dashboard). When you click Share, you’ll see the Share URLs dialog box:

The short URL is a simple version of the URL. You can give someone the short URL and, assuming they have a Customer Insights account, they can use that URL to access a similarly-configured Explore.

Users can also access this Explore by using the Expanded URL; the only difference between the two URLs is the fact that the expanded URL includes the Explore details (including fields names and filters) as part of the path.

Note that these URLs never expire, meaning you can use them to re-create an Explore any time you want.


Remove Fields & Filters

Resets the Explore by removing all dimensions, measures, and filters, and by resetting the visualization to the default chart type (column chart). For example, suppose your Explore looks like this:

After clicking Remove Fields & Filters, it will look like this:


Clear Cache & Refresh

The first time you open a Look, the underlying query executes and the Look retrieves data directly from the database. A copy of that retrieved is then stored in the Customer Insights cache. If you run the same query a few minutes later, data will be returned from the cache rather than the database. You can verify that by looking at the Explore header; if it says from cache that means that data was retrieved from the cache rather than the database:

Using the cache speeds up queries and improves overall performance. And, in many cases, you don’t need up-to-the-minute data anyway: for example, if you’re looking at historical data (say, logins for the previous month), the data is going to be the same regardless of where it comes from.

We need to mention that data remains in the cache for one hour. If you run a query and then, two hours later, run that same query again, data will be retrieved from the database, and the cache will be updated. Likewise, data will be retrieved from the database if the query requires data not found in the cache. For example, suppose you run a query to return data for the year 2017; that 2017 data is cached. You now modify the Look so that it returns data for 2017 and 2018. Because the 2018 data isn’t available in the cache, the Look will directly query the database.

Of course, there might be times when you need up-to-date data. If that’s the case, click Clear Cache & Refresh. In turn, Customer Insights will empty the cache, and then query the database directly (with a copy of the new data being added to the cache).