Admin Training Corner Series - MDA

  • 10 January 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 116 views
lisa.mirth
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Happy New Year!! 🎉 I celebrated my holidays with my family and ringing 🔔 in the new year with friends.  I hope you enjoyed yours as well and have started this year refreshed and excited about working with our Gainsight Admin community! 💙

As we get started in 2023, I’d like to dive deeper into each of the Level 1 Admin Certification topics starting with MDA (Matrix Data Architecture) also referred to as Data Management.  MDA is where all the Gainsight data objects are stored.  Understanding how to manage MDA objects and records is a critical core component in managing a Gainsight instance. 

  • Do you have questions about a specific MDA function?
  • Is there a challenge you’ve overcome in working with MDA?
  • Do you have some tips you can share with admins getting started with MDA?
  • Do you have a creative solution you’ve developed utilizing MDA?

 

If you need to get started learning about data management, we offer an online course to help understand the basic functionality here.  This link includes an exercise where you can create a new MDA object and load records using a csv file.  

Please share your questions and insight here with the group.  Together we can help each other build a stronger foundation of understanding of this topic to prepare for certification as well as managing your instance.  I look forward to your responses!

7 replies

revathimenon
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Looping in some of the experienced admin folks who could possibly share thoughts on Pt 3 & Pt 4 - 
@matthew_lind @gunjanm @heather_hansen @romain @pope1chase @zdsiegert 🙌🏼

Where focus goes, energy flows.
heather_hansen
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#1 thing that’s been super helpful for me is using lookups to other objects.  For example, we do an S3 load via rules of product data into a custom object.  I’ve included a lookup field to Company which then lets me tap into any other fields on company that I might want to add into reporting/rules/JO, etc.

matthew_lind
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My input about creating MDA objects involves using Formulas inside fields. They are very powerful, and they are calculated in Real Time.

An example of a Field well-suited for a Formula is be Days to Renewal. If you have a field with the Renewal Date, you can add a Formula like the one pictured. Now you’ve got Days to Renewal, always current, with no Bionic Rule or data load needed.

Pro Tip: You can add Formulas inside fields in Custom objects (objects you create) and Standard objects (objects provided by Gainsight out-of-the-box, where you can add fields if necessary.)

 

 

Making people their best....currently disguised as a CS Ops Architect. How can I contribute to your success?
lydiamellette
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@lisa.mirth Your post is very timely for me, as I just finished the Level 1 Data Management online course!

@matthew_lind In your example of using a formula in a Days to Renewal field, is Number the field’s data type? 

Lydia ⭑
matthew_lind
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@lydiamellette Indeed, a Days to Renewal field has the Type of Number. And some good news for you: if you start constructing a Formula field, only those Formulas which align with the Field Type will appear. If you start building, and you just feel like the available formulas or calculations you really think you want aren’t there, your Field Type may be the culprit.

Making people their best....currently disguised as a CS Ops Architect. How can I contribute to your success?
lydiamellette
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@matthew_lind 💡 That is great news. Thank you.

Lydia ⭑
lisa.mirth
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#1 thing that’s been super helpful for me is using lookups to other objects.  For example, we do an S3 load via rules of product data into a custom object.  I’ve included a lookup field to Company which then lets me tap into any other fields on company that I might want to add into reporting/rules/JO, etc.

Heather, thanks for sharing!  Lookups are so powerful in the MDA.  For anyone else looking for more information on Lookups aka Joins, here is a helpful doc.

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