Primary Key
What is a Primary Key?
A Primary Key is a unique identifier for each record in a table. It ensures that every row in the table can be individually and distinctly identified, eliminating confusion between similar records. By having a unique value for each record, the primary key allows for precise querying, updating, and management of data within the table.
Typically, a specific column—often named ID—is designated as the primary key. This column's values are unique across all rows, and the primary key constraint enforces this uniqueness, preventing duplicate records and maintaining data integrity.
Why is a Primary Key Needed?
In General
Efficient Data Retrieval: Database engines use the primary key as an index to locate records more efficiently. This speeds up operations like searches, updates, and deletions because the database can quickly find a record based on its unique identifier.
Data Integrity: By enforcing uniqueness, primary keys ensure that each row in the table is distinguishable. This prevents duplicate records and maintains the consistency of your data.
On Presight
Advanced Analytics in Presight: Identifying a primary key is required before performing advanced analytics features in Presight, such as:
Event Tracking: Accurately associating events with specific records. Creating Events
Table Builder: Creating multidimensional data cubes for complex analysis. Table Builder
Creating Custom Columns Using Formulas: Defining new columns based on calculations or transformations of existing data.
How to Set a Primary Key in Presight
For RDBMS databases and Google Sheets or CSV files, we can automatically set the Primary Key for you. If you wish to modify or have a data sources where this information cannot be retreived automatically, follow these steps:
Access Data Hub:
Navigate to the Data Hub section within Presight.
Go to the Data Tab:
Click on the Data tab to view your data tables.
Search for the Column:
Locate the table you wish to modify and find the column that should serve as the primary key. This column should have unique values for each record (e.g., an ID column).
Set as Primary Key:
Select the column you've identified.
Choose the option to Make it Primary Key. This action will enforce the primary key constraint on the selected column.
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