Start Where You Are

In Lab E and F, you built a story using a static "snapshot" of the dvdrental database. In a real-world business, data isn't a still photo; it’s a movie that never stops playing. This lab moves you from manual reporting to automated orchestration. You will re-pipe your existing dashboard to a "Live" data source and configure the triggers that allow a manager to "manage by exception" rather than constant manual monitoring.

Objectives

• Transition a dashboard from a static batch source to a live-simulated source.
• Understand the impact of Data Lineage and update cadences.
• Configure Event-Driven Triggers to automate data processing and stakeholder alerts.
• Explore the underlying technologies (Kafka/ClickHouse) that enable these streams at massive scale.

Instructions

1. Switching the Source: From Static to Live

To see how a pipeline reacts to change, we must first change the input.

• Navigate to your existing database connection settings in Domo.
• Locate the database name field. Change the name from the default dvdrental to dvdrental_live.

• Reflection: Before moving forward, look at your current dashboard. Why hasn't it changed yet? In the "Timeless" framework, consider the "inventory" of data currently sitting in your system's "warehouse" versus what is arriving at the "loading dock."

2. Manual Updates and Row Volatility

• Go to the Data tab and select the tables you used in your previous labs.

• Click Run Now to manually fetch the data from the new dvdrental_live source. Observation: Note the "Total Rows" count. As you switch to the live source, the number of rows will change. Recall that we previously disabled "Daily Updates." You must now manually trigger each table you used. This highlights why automation settings are critical—in a live environment, manual updates are a recipe for "stale" insights.

  

REMEMEBER TO DO THIS FOR EVERY SINGLE DATA TABLE YOU USED IN YOUR DASHBOARD

3. Orchestrating the Magic ETL

We want the system to "watch" the data so we don't have to.