Hi team, Do User Data Filters (UDFs) improve performance as they scope down the data displayed in the workspace? To give an example; Let's say I have a UDF that is defined to show items where category = 'A'. Will the load time of dashboards/metrics be lower since the number of items is lower as well due to the filter?

Hi Emir, UDFs are a security feature, not a performance optimization. They filter data at the platform level after the query is executed, so they don’t reduce the amount of data pulled from the source. While dashboards may feel faster due to less data being rendered, there’s no actual improvement in backend query performance.

Got it, thanks Julius it was really helpful!

Hi Emir, I need to follow-up on this as I realised that my response wasn’t 100% precise. The data filtering actually doesn’t happen after the data source query execution. The query itself already contains the WHERE clause according how the UDF is defined. However, the main message here stays the same - the UDFs are not meant to serve as a performance improvement but rather a security feature. The answer to the question if it could improve performance is not so strait-forward as UDFs are distributed trough the LDM connections via MAQL and that could involve some additional performance demand by itself. So it depends. In some simple analytic cases, you might be able to spot a performance improvement but it would be rather a “side effect” than an intended functionality.

Hi Julius, thanks for the clarification!