Data Version Snapshots

Take a snapshot of a data version to preserve it and access it again later.

Overview

In Visier, a data version represents your organization's data across time, as it was generated at a specific point in time. If your subsequent data loads include data corrections or restatements to past data, the data in analyses and guidebooks that refer to historical time periods change to reflect the corrected data.

For some audiences, historical metric values that change over time can undermine their confidence in the data. Visier provides the latest, most up-to-date data, but this isn't always desirable for executives or auditors.

To address questions from stakeholders about historical data that has changed since they saw it, you can take a snapshot of a data version, load that version, and create new visuals and analyses using historical values. With data version snapshots, you can answer follow-up questions about historical values without reconciling restated or corrected data.

Data version snapshots preserve your data and the production version at a particular point in time, such as the current metric formulas and available properties. If a metric definition changes, such as how it's calculated, the original calculation is preserved in the data version snapshot based on the production version.

Use data version snapshots to:

• Explore a prior data version in detail.
• Prevent a data version from being deleted.

Take a data version snapshot

You can take a data version snapshot of the current data version and production version. If a new data version was recently generated and you know you want to keep it, take a snapshot as soon as possible.

You can take 3 snapshots per 30-day period. Data version snapshots capture primary data categories and do not capture supplementary data categories. For more information, see Data Categories.

1. On the global navigation bar, click Data > Data Version Snapshots.
2. Click Take Snapshot Now.
3. Type a display name for the snapshot; for example, Snapshot 10/18/2024.
4. Type a description for the snapshot; for example, Data version 18111113 as of 10/18/2024.
5. Optional: To select a specific data version and production version for the snapshot, expand Advanced. If you skip this step, the most recent data version and production version are selected to snapshot.
   1. In Data version, select the data version to snapshot. This represents the data for your analytic objects, such as Employee data.
   2. In Production version, select the production version to snapshot. This represents the analytic model details, such as how metrics are calculated and which properties are available to use with the data.
6. When finished, click Take Snapshot.

After you take a snapshot, you can explore the data in a project.

Explore an old data version

1. Click Data > Data Snapshots.
2. In the list of snapshots, click the data version snapshot you want to explore.
3. Click View Snapshot.

   Result: The solution experience opens. You can use Explore and Guidebooks to investigate the data as it was at the time of the data version.