MIP Logo

Dashboard Week : Day 1 – Thought Process and Tips

This post was originally published on The Data School blog between 2018 and July 2025, before our program was renamed to MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. References throughout this article to “The Data School” or “DS” all refer to what is now MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. The program, its people, and its commitment to launching outstanding analytics careers remain the same – just under a new name.

If you are having trouble viewing this article, please report it here

Today we were given a data set which had food nutrient information along with Food Details, Recipe information and  measure for each food item.

My approach was to start with Recipe data and figure out the nutrient information and calorie details for each of the recipes. The problem was that the file had data per 100 gm of recipe and there was  ingredient weight /per recipe . I wanted a dynamic way to select the portion size for each of the recipe/Ingredient selected. I wanted to give the users option to select more than one recipe at a time.

My first thought was to use Set actions. However figuring out how to store the portion sizes for each recipe ingredient  dynamically was difficult.  I created a separate excel with portion sizes(1-10) alone and cross joining with the recipe data. So for each recipe , I have a row with predefined portion .

Then I created a concatenated field [Recipe ingredient]+[Portion]  and used this field to create Set . Below is a snap shot of how users can select the portion. So when user selects  Apple and portion size 2,with the help of set actions, the value that get store in set will be ” Apple,golden delicious,unpeeled,raw2″. Clearing the selection should “Keep all value” in the set

.

Used the set in filter and created calculated field weight_portion as [Portion]*[Ingredient  Weight (g)].

This solved the problem of dynamically assigning portions to ingredient/recipe.

In order to reset the values of set  , I created a dummy field as ” Reset”. Drag it on to a new sheet. “Reset” will repeat for the number of ingredient selected in your set.

Adjust the size of field so that only one “Reset” word is visible. Create a set action to  add values to set on clicking “Reset” and Remove all values from set on clearing the selection.

This will remove all values from Set and  you can start selecting new recipe /portions again.

Share this post