FAQ
  • 25 Aug 2023
  • 7 Minutes to read
  • Dark
    Light

FAQ

  • Dark
    Light

Article Summary

Some questions about Preset are asked frequently. We've categorized and answered the most common ones below.

General

1. What is Preset?
Preset is a modern cloud-based data exploration and visualization platform powered by Apache Superset™, the leading open-source data analytics tool. Preset delivers a simple, yet powerful interface to quickly visualize and analyze your data, empowering everyone in your organization to easily draw and share insights through interactive charts and dashboards.


2. What are some key Preset features?
Some of the key features of Preset include:

  • A wide variety of chart types, such as bar charts, line charts, and pie charts
  • Support for multiple data sources, including SQL databases, Druid, and CSV files
  • Interactive and embedded dashboards
  • Data exploration and filtering capabilities
  • SQL Lab for querying and exploring data
  • User and role-based access control
  • Customizable visualizations using CSS

3. What data sources does Preset support?
Preset supports a wide variety of data sources, including SQL databases, Druid, and CSV files. It also supports data sources through additional plugins and connectors.


4. Is Preset easy to use?
Preset is designed for ease of use. It has a user-friendly interface and a wide variety of chart types, making it easy to create and share interactive and embedded dashboards. Additionally, it has a SQL Lab feature, which allows users to query and explore data.


5. Can I customize the visualizations in Preset?
Yes, Preset allows users to customize the visualizations using CSS. Users can change colors, fonts, and other visual elements to match their organization's branding and style guidelines.


6. Can I share my dashboards with others?
Yes, Preset allows users to share their dashboards with others through various sharing options such as embedding, export, and sharing links.


7. What is the difference between Preset and Superset?
Preset Cloud is a fully hosted, hassle free cloud service for Apache Superset™. With Preset, you always run the latest version of Superset without having to install or maintain it by yourself. Being a fully managed, enterprise-ready solution means that Preset maintains a reliable state-of-the-art Superset installation, including the underlying message queue, asynchronous Celery workers, multiple caching layers, SMTP email server for supporting alerts & reports, and a well-monitored observability solution. This robust infrastructure supports the access and sharing of data in terms of both security and content collaboration between users.


Billing and Subscriptions

1. How can I retrieve a copy of my invoice?
Invoices are automatically attached and sent to you. Check your Spam folder in case you are not receiving your invoice.
Contact support to get a copy of your invoice.


2. How can I cancel my subscription?

  1. Access Preset Manager at https://manage.app.preset.io/app/
  2. Click on MANAGE TEAM, next to your team’s name
  3. Navigate to the Subscription plan tab
  4. Click DOWNGRADE on the Free panel

3. Can I change the email address I used while signing up to Preset?
At this time you can't update your email address through Preset user interface. If your team needs to change user email addresses, contact support.


Charts and Dashboards

1. How are colors assigned in my Preset dashboard?
Preset stores the dashboard color context as metadata and retrieves it in the chart builder.

Each dimension has a fixed color dictated by the dashboard context, and when a new dimension is later introduced in the chart, the context is queried and the chart gets the next available color from the categorical scale.


2. Can I show decimals and absolute values along with their percentage contribution in a stacked bar chart?
This is not currently supported by Preset/Superset. You can follow the development status of this capability through our feature feedback portal.


3. How does Preset handle large data volumes more than 50,000 rows?
Every Preset chart is powered by a query sent to your database. Preset processes and scans necessary data volumes for a chart or a dashboard, and there is to limit set by Preset for the data used for querying.

Row limits in Preset can be specified for the resulting data points used for plotting charts. For example, a row limit of 50 in a pie chart will make sure no more than 50 slices are shown; a row limit of 100 in a bar chart will make sure no more than 100 bars across all dimensions are shown. Preset has a maximum row limit of 50,000 for most chart displays to ensure your web browser doesn't crash when loading the chart or dashboard.


4. Can I change the cell bar color on a table chart?
Yes!

  1. Navigate to the relevant dashboard
  2. Click Edit Dashboard
  3. Click the ellipsis (...), and select Edit CSS
  4. Change the background color of the .cell-bar class
.cell-bar {
  background: red;
  opacity: 50%;
}

Note: To apply different colors for positive and negative bars, use .cell-bar.positive and .cell-bar.negative.


4. How can I use non-USD currenies in my charts?
To specify a non-USD currency, go to the chart's source dataset and create a custom metric, expand the drop down for metric settings and set your chosen currency in the "Metric Currency" section.

  • Metric Currency:
    • Prefix / Suffix: Choose whether the currency symbol should appear before (Prefix) or after (Suffix) the number
    • Currency: Either select a currency from the drop-down or type the three letter abbreviation for the currency (example "AUD" for the Australian Dollar)
      • Currency formatting is supported in the following chart types:
        • Table
        • Pivot Table
        • Big Number
        • Big Number with Trendline
        • Series Echarts
        • Pie
        • Gauge
        • Funnel
        • Treemap

For more information on how to use create a custom metric see Customizing the Semantic Layer


5. My dashboard times out and crashes the browser when I have multiple dashboard tabs with 50+ charts. How can I optimize the performance of my dashboard? Is there any way I can identify the bottleneck charts?
Charts load based on dashboard tabs. If you are facing issues during the initial dashboard loading, the bottleneck is most likely a chart on your first tab.

One way to optimize the dashboard performance is to split the load of a tab by migrating some of the charts to a new tab.

To identify performance hindering charts, look for outliers that have

  • Large amount of data/load returned from the requests to load everything
  • Large amount of dimensions on the same chart that need to be rendered

6. My alert/report cuts off columns or rows of my table chart. How can I fix this?
Only the visible rows in your source dashboard will be shown in the report screenshot. To increase the number of rows shown in a dashboard report: navigate to the source dashboard for your alert/report, identify the row which is holding your table chart and resize that row's height by clicking & dragging the bottom of the row to your desired height.

To show more columns in your screenshot, you can increase the width of the screenshot taken. From the alert/report editing screen: specify a custom Screenshot Width for your alert/report. Your custom width can be between 600 and 2400 pixels. The format is the plain number ( ex. 2000 ). Note that tables wider than the maximum limit of 2400 pixels will be cut off.


Data Exploration

1. Can I schedule query reruns in Preset?
No, but you can create a table chart and create a refresh schedule for it.


2. Who can see my query history?
Only the workspace admin can see your query history. You can share an individual query via URL, which can be saved by the recipients.


Sharing and Collaboration

1. What does the error message “This endpoint requires the datasource [database].[table], database, or ‘alldatasourceaccess’ permission” mean?
This means that the user has not been granted access to the dataset powering the charts that are showing this error. To fix this issue (as an admin)
1. Navigate to the workspace
2. Click on Settings in the top right corner
3. Select Data Access Roles
4. Click the “+” icon to add a new data access role
5. On the panel, select the users and set the permissions to include the relevant [database].[table]


2. Can I download charts and dashboards as .csv?
You can download charts as .csv, but you can download dashboards only as .jpg image.


Workspace Roles/Permissions

1. Why can’t I create new assets (dataset, chart, dashboard)?
If you don’t see the asset creation options on Preset, this means you don’t have the right permissions.
Check out role-based access details, and reach out to your workspace admin to review your Workspace Role.


2. Who can create a new database connection?
Only Workspace Admins are able to create a new database connection.
To create a new database connection, make sure you are the admin on the desired workspace, and follow these steps:

  1. Hover over Settings on the top right corner
  2. Select Database Connections from the drop-down menu
  3. Click on + DATABASE
  4. Select your database engine, and fill the form accordingly


Was this article helpful?