Working with pre-built data models

In mature environments, business analysts partner with developers or colleagues with a strong database background to create pre-built data models to query. Working with a standard pre-built query template ensures that the model has been correctly configured and will produce accurate data in a timely manner. The following screenshot is a predefined query against the Sales model:

Notice in the previous example that there are seven objects joined together in the main window. These objects are typically tables from a database or preconfigured topics of information (Interactive Reporting objects used to combine data together to make querying easier for the analyst). Each of these table's objects contain multiple elements, which represent columns of data. From this configuration, the analyst can use the elements in the tables on the screen to build a query to retrieve data from the database.