Filter a Large Explore with Extends OR Build a Large Explore with Extends

[jakec-163840711]

We sometimes need a “mega Explore” - an explore that joins several adjacent domains together (e.g. web traffic + deal stages + phone activity + orders + payments). It’s unlikely we need all of that information in any one chart, but it’s convenient that a savvy enduser can pull any field that they possibly could want for a given analysis, no matter how uncommon (e.g. web traffic + payments).

The question is: for our model, I see 2 approaches:

1. Build 1 “mega-Explore” that Joins together several Views, each of which has several Dimensions, so we end up with ~100 fields. Then, create multiple user-friendly “simple Explores” by Extending the mega-Explore and using filters to hide most of the fields from the enduser.
2. Build the multiple distinct “Simple explores” (e.g. web traffic; deal stages; phone activity; orders; payments) from the bottoms up. And then, build 1 mega-Explore the same way we did in A using Joins (or maybe alternatively by Extending multiple “simple Explores”). 

In some ways A seems better as we define the Joins just once in the mega-Explore and then only need to focus on filters to curate “simple Explores”. If a field is missing from a “Simple Explore”, we only need to modify the filter, as we know the mega-Explore has considered every possible Join. Also, the enduser would have no idea that their simple Explore was just a filtered version of the mega-Explore. 

But….A also just strikes me as messy, not particularly modular, not particularly elegant code. The mega-Explore is huge and underlies every chart in our organization. In option B, the mega-Explore is only used when an enduser has an uncommon need (e.g. web traffic + payments).

Would love to know if anyone has thought through this before.