Trying to show ALL the names

1

I've got a list of all my staff in a database. All my staff are supposed to be entering data every time they complete a certain task. Most do but a few don't. I've used the notebook editor to make a list of the staff that do enter their stuff.

How do I make the list include all the staff that have never entered their stuff? i.e. Staff that show up in the original database but don't show up when I join the data together.

2

Hi @paintbb84
I'm not sure I understand what you're looking for, but it sounds like you would need to use a different join than Left Join:
https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/users-guide/custom-questions.html#joining-data
Or do it in SQL.

3

I discovered its the filters that are killing me. Is there a way to filter for "a specific value" or "null" without using SQL?

4

@paintbb84 I don't think I understand. Try providing more context or screenshots. You can filter for a value or if it's empty:
https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/users-guide/custom-questions.html#filtering

5

I appreciate all your help @flamber :slight_smile: I'll see if I can get some screenshots. Here's what I did:

  1. Got a list of all the users.
  2. Left join that to a list of all the tasks they completed.
    (so far its working perfectly!)
    I then tried to filter out the tasks I didn't want using the filter option in the notebook editor.
    It's here that I discovered that its filtering out the unwanted tasks AND its filtering out users who never completed the desired tasks (they were null values).
    -This is what led me to have an incomplete list. So I was asking if you can filter for a field for a specific value and a null value at the same time.

I think I solved my problem by doing a right join at the end of the query with the list of users again. Now people who haven't done the desired task show up again with an empty value for their total.

6

@paintbb84 Isn't that what I wrote a couple of days ago? Without having access to your schema, then it's difficult to recommend how you should do queries. But the problem isn't Metabase, you would see the same problem with SQL, so it matters a lot how you join.

7

Yes, your "right join" suggestion was exactly the trick I needed to move forward in that situation and I'm super thankful for your idea!! Seriously, you saved the day with this one!!! I need to buy you lunch for this one :slight_smile:

My question in this instance was looking for the possibility of filtering a data field for a specific value but also leaving the empty values too (i.e. "I want to see all instances where field X was 154 and also all the times field X was empty too")

8

@paintbb84 Yes, by using a Custom Expression:
https://www.metabase.com/learn/questions/custom-expressions
[field_x] = 154 OR isnull([field_x])
(or use isempty() instead of isnull() depending on field type)