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Sets

Sets are collections of fields that can be referenced throughout your data model. They're a convenient way to reference several fields over and over again instead of having to re-type the names.

Sets are always and only defined in views. Although they can contain fields that are outside of the view they're defined in, there must be a path to join the views together to be able to reference fields in other views in a single set.

Properties#

Sets have only two properties:

name: (Required) The name of the set. If you reference this set elsewhere this is the name you will use. Like all names, it follows Zenlytic naming conventions

fields: This is a list of fields that make up the set. There is a flexible syntax you can use to define the fields included in sets, which is discussed below.

Field syntax#

The syntax for specifying which fields to include in a list of fields is as follows.

You can include all available fields by using the special (case-sensitive) value ALL_FIELDS*.

You can include a single field by name by referencing its name. E.g. customer_name would include the field customer_name. If you want to include a field that is not in the base view, you'll need to specify the view name. For example, customers.customer_name would include that specific field, regardless of the view you are in.

You can un-include a single field by name by referencing its name with a negation before it. E.g. -customer_name would un-include the field customer_name. If you had two values specified, [ALL_FIELDS*, -customer_name] you would be including all available fields except for the customer_name field. As always, if you want to include a field that is not in the base view, you'll need to specify the view name. For example, -customers.customer_name would un-include that specific field, regardless of the view you are in.

You can include a set (even in the building of another set) by referencing its name and expanding it with the *. E.g. my_set* would include all fields defined in that set. If you are specifying fields in different views, you need to reference the view name for sets want to include or un-include. For example, customers.my_set* would include that all fields in that set.

You can un-include a set (even in the building of another set) by negating it, referencing its name and expanding it with the *. E.g. -my_set* would un-include all fields defined in that set. If you are specifying fields in different views, you need to reference the view name for sets want to include or un-include. For example, -customers.my_set* would un-include that all fields in that set.

These operations happen in order, so if you include a field early in your definition, then exclude it by excluding a set that the field is present in, the field will be excluded from the set. Vice versa, if you exclude the field early on in your definition, then later add it back in, it will be present in the set.

Examples#

Let's say we have a view with five (5) fields: [customer_id, email, new_vs_repeat, state, city].

Let's define a set for the customer location. This only includes the state and city fields.

name: customer_locationfields: [state, city]

Let's define a set for the customer without PII. This will include all fields in the view except for email.

name: customer_no_piifields: [ALL_FIELDS*, -email]

Finally, let's define a set without PII and without location. We can use our existing building blocks for this one. In the first part of this definition we included the fields customer_id, new_vs_repeat, state, and city. Then we negated our set with state and city, which means our final set will only contain two fields customer_id and new_vs_repeat, which is exactly what we wanted.

name: customer_no_pii_no_locationfields: [customer_no_pii*, -customer_location]