Views

A view is a stable, named contract over a table. It decides exactly which fields are exposed to downstream consumers and what each one is called.

Views are what make your data consumable. Without a view, a table has no OData entity set and is invisible to Power BI and Power Query.

Why not just expose the table?

Because internal names change. A view is an insulating layer: rename an attribute from ccy to currency internally and, as long as the view field is still called CurrencyCode, every report keeps working.

Structure

Field	Description	Required
Table	The table the view reads from	Yes
Name	The OData entity set name	Yes
Description	Free text	No
Fields	The attributes and system fields to expose	Yes — at least SourceId

Naming rules

View names and field names must be OData-safe identifiers:

• Start with a letter.
• Contain only letters, numbers and underscores.
• No spaces, dashes or punctuation.
• View names must be unique across your whole environment.

Caution

The web app enforces this as you type. If the Create button stays disabled, the name is the usual culprit.

What you can expose

System fields

Field	Type	Notes
SourceId	UUID	The OData key. Required in every view and cannot be unticked.
Code	string	The record’s built-in Code.
Name	string	The record’s built-in Name.
Version	integer	Which revision of the record this is.
CreatedAt	datetime	When this version was created.

Sensible defaults

When you create a view, Code and Name are pre-selected only for MANUAL tables — on an AUTO table they carry no meaning for a consumer. Version is left unticked by default; add it if your consumers care about revision numbers.

Attributes

Ordinary attributes are exposed as a single field each.

Domain attributes

A domain attribute is exposed as up to three separate scalar fields:

Field	Contains
{Attribute}SourceId	The referenced record’s source_id
{Attribute}Code	The referenced record’s Code
{Attribute}Name	The referenced record’s Name

For a Counterparty domain attribute you get CounterpartySourceId, CounterpartyCode and CounterpartyName.

Publish all three

Code is what a report author filters on, Name is what they display, and SourceId is what an integration joins on. Including all three costs nothing and saves a change request later.

Create a view

1. Go to Views and click Create View — or create it directly from a table’s overview page, which pre-selects the table for you.

2. Choose the model and the table.

3. Give the view a name. It is pre-filled from the table name in OData-safe form.

4. Tick the fields to expose. SourceId is always included.

5. Click Create.

Edit a view

Open the view to manage its fields. From here you can:

• Tick or untick fields.
• Rename any exposed field. This is the key capability — the published name is independent of the internal attribute name.
• Reorder fields with the up and down arrows. The order is the column order consumers see.

Save when you are done. The page warns you if you navigate away with unsaved changes.

Renaming a view field is a breaking change

Consumers reference fields by name. Renaming CurrencyCode to Ccy will break every report, Power Query step and integration that uses it. Treat a view like a public API: add fields freely, rename and remove them only with notice.

Keep field names in one style

Pick PascalCase (AccountNumber) or snake_case (account_number) and apply it across all views. Mixed conventions make Power BI models painful to read.

Delete a view

Deleting a view removes the corresponding OData entity set. Anything consuming it will start failing, so confirm nothing depends on it first.

Versioning a contract

Because a view name is just a name, the simplest way to make a breaking change safely is to publish a second view:

AccountsView     (existing consumers keep using this)
AccountsViewV2   (new shape; migrate consumers over time)

Once nothing uses the old view, delete it.

Consuming a view

Each view becomes an OData entity set at /odata/{ViewName}, supporting $select, $filter, $orderby, $top, $skip and $count.

See OData API for the full query surface and for connecting Excel and Power BI.