Who This Series Is For
The Advanced Modeling series is for the people building Farseer models — the modelers, FP&A engineers, and admins who decide what the data shape looks like and how calculations flow through it.
If you're using Farseer to enter or analyze data, the Sheets, Dashboards, and Core Concepts collections cover what you need. This series goes one level deeper: how to design a model that scales, performs, and stays maintainable as the business changes.
In This Series
Database Topology & Schema Design — the shape of the model: tables, relationships, and how they hang together. Start here to understand the foundation.
Designing a Dimensional Model — how to define the dimensions that slice your data — products, regions, time, accounts — and how to keep them clean as the business evolves.
Designing a Calculation Model — how variables and formulas combine to produce values. Patterns for layering calculations, propagating values through dimensions, and avoiding circular dependencies.
Performance Optimization — what makes a model slow and what to do about it. Cell-count amplification, on-demand calculation, and diagnosing performance issues with Model Health.
Farseer Terminology & Glossary — reference. Keep this open in another tab — every term used in the series is defined here.
Recommended Reading Order
Read the four design articles in the listed order if you're building a model from scratch. Each one assumes the concepts from the previous one.
If you're improving an existing model, jump to whichever article matches your current concern:
Adding new dimensions or restructuring tables? Start with Database Topology & Designing a Dimensional Model.
Building new variables or untangling formulas? Designing a Calculation Model.
Model is slow or growing too large? Performance Optimization, then check Model Health for runtime diagnostics.
Before You Start
The series builds on the Core Concepts. If you haven't already, get familiar with these first:
Diagnostics & Maintenance
Once a model is in production, two articles complement the design series for ongoing maintenance:
Locks — protect finalized data from edits during planning cycles.
Model Health — diagnose calculation errors, modeling-time issues, and performance problems from a single dashboard. Pair with Performance Optimization for tuning.
→ Up Next: Database Topology & Schema Design
Start with the foundation — how Farseer models are shaped at the database level, and what to consider when deciding which entities become dimension tables, variables, and member relationships.