Link template columns

Hi,

I have set up a table where I want to show one of the columns as a link. In the URL I want to include a column not shown in the table, but that does not seem to work. I don't want to show this column in the table as it only is an ID.

If I remove the column included in the URL, the link/text in the column (in this case "Deal name") disappears. See Screenshots.

Is there any workaround for this?

With column ID in the table:

Without column ID in the table:

Version: 36.4

Hi @mangefager
That has been supported since 40.0 for hidden column: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/13927
Latest release is 41.1: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/releases

1 Like

@flamber

The issue that you linked to describes using hidden columns in click behavior on dashboards, but it still doesn't work for questions. If I set up a question only (not embedded in a dashboard) and try to reference a hidden column in a link template, it is ignored.

Is this a bug or by design?

@jkubecki This topic is originally about the Enterprise functionality, which predated Click Behavior.

It works fine on questions as long as the column is actually returned in the dataset, which is easy enough in SQL, but in GUI then you first have to exclude the column in the "Visible columns" sidebar, run the question, include the column again in the Notebook editor (select all).

Hm, it doesn't seem to be working for me. (I'm on the hosted version.)

Whenever I include them again in the Notebook editor, then go back to "Visualize", it re-adds the columns back to the visual results.

Once I remove them there, they're no longer available for links or conditional formatting. Any links or conditional formatting that did reference them just breaks?

I sort of have it working. It's really odd and finicky, because I've had it working before I'm just trying to make it repeatable.

The only way I seem to be able to get it to work is the following, which is a bit of a hack:

  1. Create a SQL question
  2. Turn it into a model
  3. In the Metadata editor, set the columns I want to "hide" as "Detail View Only"
  4. Build my "real" question based on the model.

Alternatively, I can skip #1 by just editing the metadata for the table or SQL view in "Admin".

Another oddity: Once I set the columns to "Detail View Only" in the Metadata editor, it disappears completely from the Metabase editor itself. There's no way to get it back. Has it always done that? I swear I've done that before without that issue.

Either way, though, it seems a little "hacky" to have it still show up in the detail view.

@jkubecki There's several issues open about Models and column visibility. The hidden functionality means that it's still part of the results, but that is much harder to control in GUI questions as it will constantly try to make sure that the columns are available.