How Qualibrate Build Analytics Using Cube Semantic Layer with Vue.js

IndustrySaaS

Employees11-50

HQAmsterdam, The Netherlands

StackMongoDB, React

Use CaseSemantic Layer

Originally published at Qualibrate Blog

Here at Qualibrate we’ve been trying to manage the best way to give users the flexibility of advanced reporting and simplicity in generating great dashboards, and while Kibana, Grafana, et al. are great products, we wanted to give our users a seamless experience when they’re using our platform.

After discussing the variety of options available versus the case of building our own, we found Cube. We thought that their offering was perfect for our use case, but there was a big caveat—our current platform uses the Vue.js for which there was no implementation. That’s when the spark ignited; why should we reinvent the wheel by trying to copy an incredible product, when instead we could take advantage of what a great community gives us and try to work on this together. We started using Cube in our workflow when we saw there was a opportunity to make an improvement on the MongoDB connector. That moment, our relationship with the community began.

Once we were able to map our database schemas and curate our relationships, our work began. We tried to match the React components as closely as possible in Vue.js. This is the result.

Set up a demo backend

If you already have Cube Backend up and running you can skip this step.

Since we’re using MongoDB for our product, we’ll use it for our tutorial as well. Please follow this guide to set up the Cube backend.

Using the Vue.js library

Let’s create a new Vue CLI project using @vue/cli and navigate into it.

$ vue create cubejs-mongo-example && cd cubejs-mongo-example

Next, install the @cubejs-client/vue dependency.

$ npm install --save @cubejs-client/core @cubejs-client/vue

Also, we're going to add vue-multiselect, vue-chartkick and Chart.js for this example

$ npm install --save vue-multiselect vue-chartkick chart.js

Now we can start the development server

$ npm run serve

Voila! Your application will be launched and is available at http://localhost:8080 and should look like this: Screen 1

Environment Variables

Vue applications configuration variables can be loaded through a .env file and will be available if using the VUE_APP_ convention (More information available here)

VUE_APP_CUBEJS_API_TOKEN=<YOUR-API-TOKEN>
VUE_APP_CUBEJS_API_URL=<YOUR-API-URL>

Whenever your application is running, this configuration will be accessible through the process.env object.

Configure the dependencies

src/main.js is the default entrypoint to any generated @vue/cli project; it’s where the Vue app is mounted. In this case, we’re putting global components so that they’re available everywhere.

import Vue from 'vue';
import VueChartkick from 'vue-chartkick';
import Chart from 'chart.js';
import App from './App.vue';

Vue.config.productionTip = false;
// Add ChartKick components with Chart.js Adapter
Vue.use(VueChartkick, { adapter: Chart });

new Vue({
  render: h => h(App),
}).$mount('#app');

Using the QueryRenderer

The <query-renderer/> component takes a Cube object and a formulated query in order to fetch the data and return a resultSet. It handles the request asynchronously and renders the slot once it’s been resolved.

<template>
  <div class="hello">
	// Query Renderer component
	<query-renderer :cubejs-api="cubejsApi" :query="query">
  	<template v-slot="{ loading, resultSet }">
      	<chart-renderer
        	v-if="!loading"
        	:result-set="resultSet" />
  	</template>
	</query-renderer>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import cubejs from '@cubejs-client/core';
import { QueryRenderer } from '@cubejs-client/vue';
import ChartRenderer from './ChartRenderer.vue';

const cubejsApi = cubejs(
  process.env.VUE_APP_CUBEJS_API_TOKEN,
  { apiUrl: process.env.VUE_APP_CUBEJS_API_URL },
);

export default {
  name: 'HelloWorld',
  components: {
	QueryRenderer,
	ChartRenderer,
  },
  data() {
	const query = {
  	measures: ['Orders.count'],
  	timeDimensions: [
    	{
      	dimension: 'LineItems.createdAt',
      	granularity: 'month',
    	},
  	],
	};

	return {
  	cubejsApi,
  	selected: undefined,
  	query,
	};
  },
  methods: {
	customLabel(a) {
  	return a.title;
	},
  },
};
</script>

Here is a simple example of a <chart-renderer/> component for displaying information coming from resultSet mapping the result into an object that is compatible with the vue-chartkick line-chart data series:

<template>
  <div class="chart-renderer">
	<line-chart :data="series"></line-chart>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {
  name: 'ChartRenderer',
  props: {
	resultSet: {
  	type: Object,
  	required: true,
	},
  },
  computed: {
	series() {
  	const seriesNames = this.resultSet.seriesNames();
  	const pivot = this.resultSet.chartPivot();
  	const series = [];
  	seriesNames.forEach((e) => {
    	const data = pivot.map(p => [p.x, p[e.key]]);
    	series.push({ name: e.key, data });
  	});
  	return series;
	},
  },
};
</script>

Up until this point it should look something like this:

Screen 2

Using the QueryBuilder

The <query-builder/> component is a utility that gets the schema information from the API and allows you to generate the query with some helper methods. Some of these include setMeasures and addMeasures, which change the underlying query and update the resultSet on the background. Every available method is part of the scoped slots object. The only required prop is cubejsApi. It expects an instance of your Cube API client returned by the Cube method.

Here you can find more detailed reference of the QueryBuilder component

<template>
  <div class="hello">
	<query-builder :cubejs-api="cubejsApi">
  	<template v-slot="{ measures, setMeasures, availableMeasures, loading, resultSet }">
    	// Render whatever content
  	</template>
	</query-builder>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import cubejs from '@cubejs-client/core';
import { QueryBuilder } from '@cubejs-client/vue';

const cubejsApi = cubejs(
  process.env.VUE_APP_CUBEJS_API_TOKEN,
  { apiUrl: process.env.VUE_APP_CUBEJS_API_URL },
);

export default {
  name: 'HelloWorld',
  components: {
	QueryBuilder,
  },
  data() {
	return {
  	cubejsApi,
	};
  },
};
</script>

Then we’re going to add the capability to select some dimensions and measures. It will update the query and render the content accordingly. The setMeasures and setDimensions methods set the collection directly to the query since these multiselect controls make it a bit easier. availableMeasures and availableDimensions get the information from the schema to show allowed inputs.

<template>
  <div class="hello">
	<query-builder :cubejs-api="cubejsApi" :query="query">
  	<template v-slot="{ measures, setMeasures, availableMeasures, dimensions, setDimensions, availableDimensions, loading, resultSet }">
    	<div class="selects">
      	<multiselect
        	:multiple="true"
        	:customLabel="customLabel"
        	@input="setMeasures"
        	:value="measures"
        	:options="availableMeasures"
        	placeholder="Please Select"
        	label="Title"
        	track-by="name"/>
      	<multiselect
        	:multiple="true"
        	:customLabel="customLabel"
        	@input="setDimensions"
        	:value="dimensions"
        	:options="availableDimensions"
        	placeholder="Please Select"
        	label="Title"
        	track-by="name"/>
    	</div>
      	<chart-renderer
        	v-if="!loading && measures.length > 0"
        	:result-set="resultSet" />
  	</template>
	</query-builder>
  </div>
</template>

This is a fully working example and should look like this.

Screen 3

<template>
  <div class="hello">
	<query-builder :cubejs-api="cubejsApi" :query="query">
  	<template v-slot="{ measures, setMeasures, availableMeasures, dimensions, setDimensions, availableDimensions, loading, resultSet }">
    	<div class="selects">
      	<multiselect
        	:multiple="true"
        	:customLabel="customLabel"
        	@input="setMeasures"
        	:value="measures"
        	:options="availableMeasures"
        	placeholder="Please Select"
        	label="Title"
        	track-by="name"/>
      	<multiselect
        	:multiple="true"
        	:customLabel="customLabel"
        	@input="setDimensions"
        	:value="dimensions"
        	:options="availableDimensions"
        	placeholder="Please Select"
        	label="Title"
        	track-by="name"/>
    	</div>
      	<chart-renderer
        	v-if="!loading && measures.length > 0"
        	:result-set="resultSet" />
  	</template>
	</query-builder>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import cubejs from '@cubejs-client/core';
import Multiselect from 'vue-multiselect';
import { QueryBuilder } from '@cubejs-client/vue';
import ChartRenderer from './ChartRenderer.vue';

const cubejsApi = cubejs(
  'eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.e30.K9PiJkjegbhnw4Ca5pPlkTmZihoOm42w8bja9Qs2qJg',
  { apiUrl: 'https://awesome-ecom.gcp-us-central1.cubecloudapp.dev/cubejs-api/v1' },
);

export default {
  name: 'HelloWorld',
  components: {
	Multiselect,
	QueryBuilder,
	ChartRenderer,
  },
  data() {
	const query = {
  	measures: [],
  	timeDimensions: [
  	],
	};

	return {
  	cubejsApi,
  	selected: undefined,
  	query,
	};
  },
  methods: {
	customLabel(a) {
  	return a.title;
	},
  },
};
</script>
<style src="vue-multiselect/dist/vue-multiselect.min.css"></style>

<style scoped>
.hello {
  padding: 0 10rem;
}

.selects {
  display: flex;
}

.selects .multiselect {
  margin: 0.5rem;
}
</style>

Similar to measures, availableMeasures, and updateMeasures, there are properties to render and dimensions, segments, time, filters, and chart types to manage. You can find the full list of properties in the documentation.