Analytics » Pivot Table » Creating a New Pivot Table
Pivot Tables allows you to dynamically summarize large amounts of data for easy analysis and visualization. You can transform data in a table(s) into meaningful summaries easily by using intuitive drag and drop interface provided by Virtutem Analytics. With Pivot tables you can easily aggregate and filter the values the way you want it.
To create a Pivot View, follow the steps given below:
You can also create new Pivot table by opening the corresponding table on which you want to create the pivot table and invoking the New - > New Pivot View option in the toolbar. In Edit Design mode, you will notice that all the columns of the selected table listed as drag and drop items on the left side Column List pane. On the right hand side, you can see the Design Area with shelves to drop the columns and preview area below to view Pivot created.
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If multiple tables in the data base are connected using a Lookup Column then all the column of the related tables will be listed in the Column List Pane |
Below is a brief description of each of the shelves in the Pivot tab.
Column : Distinct data values present in the columns dropped in this shelf will appear as the column headers of your pivot table. You can also have multiple columns dropped in this shelf for summarization. When you add multiple columns, they will be displayed as categorized layers (group within group) of data vertically.
Row : Distinct data values present in the columns dropped in this shelf will appear as the row headers of your pivot table. You can also have multiple columns dropped in this shelf for summarization. When you add multiple columns, they will be displayed as categorized layers (group within group) of data horizontally.
Data : Values of the columns dropped in this shelf will appear in the body of the pivot table. Values will be summarized based on the summary function that you select. Also it will be categorized to provide the appropriate summary value for each cell corresponding to the row and column value in the table. You can also have multiple columns dropped in the Data shelf for summarization.
The best way to understand how to summarize data in a Pivot table is by example. The following is a table showing sales data of a store.
In the example shown below, pivot table summarizes the data in the above table and presents the total sales in each region grouped by each year. In this example, the pivot table has Date column in Column shelf, Region column in Row shelf, and Sales column in Data shelf. Sales in each region is displayed using a Sum aggregation. Also, Virtutem Analytics automatically summarizes (in this example it is addition) the values of each row and column based on the summary function that you select. Summary row and column will be added at the bottom and to the right of the pivot table.
Functions that are applied on each of the column in the example here are:
You can also change a data column to use any one of the other functions like: Sum , Count , Average , Standard Deviation etc ., depending on the data type of that column, which will be discussed in the next section.
Virtutem Analytics allows you to drop multiple columns (up to 15 columns) in to each of the shelves. When you have more than one column in Column/Row shelf, Virtutem Analytics automatically groups data in the order they appear from left to right or top to bottom. For example, if you add Product Category and then Product to Rows shelf, all the products will be group by their product categories making it easy to see related data and summary information. Similarly, if you add Date and then Region in the Column shelf, then for each distinct year all the regions will be grouped under it to provide the corresponding summary information.
When you add more than one column into Data shelf, columns will be arranged horizontally with each data column (columns in Data shelf) organized as a separate column in the pivot table as shown below.
When you create a Pivot Table, Virtutem Analytics automatically adds summary rows and columns to it, based on the summary function that you select. A row displaying summary values of each group of data will also be added, if you have added more than one column to the Row shelf of your Pivot Table. For each column dropped in the Data shelf there will be a summary column added to the right of the pivot table.
Virtutem Analytics allows you to apply functions like Sum, Count, Average, Min, Max, Year, etc., on the columns to group and summarize data in the Pivot table you create. When you apply a function on a column, a single value will be returned, derived based on the values in the column
In Virtutem Analytics, list of Aggregate/Categorical Functions that you can apply on a column varies depending on the data type of the column. The default function for a Numeric (including Currency) data type is Sum and for a Date data type it is Year . If the data type of the column is a string (Categorical/Dimension column) and not numeric, then the default function applied is Actual Values .
To change the default function applied:
For instance if you want to Summarizing data like finding the average sales of each product by product category in each region, select Average function from the drop-down list for Sales (Data) column and then click Click here to Generate Pivot link or View Mode button in the toolbar.
The following tables list all the functions along with the description of their functionality that are applicable for Rows and Columns field.
Function | Description |
Dimension | Treats the values in the column as a textual (categorical/dimensional) value. Returns each distinct value present as a text value. |
Range | Groups the entire range of numeric values present in the column into multiple ranges. E.g., 0 to 100, 101 to 250 etc., |
Date Data Type - Actual values:
Function | Description |
Year | Returns all distinct year values present in the column. E.g.,2007, 2010 |
Quarter & Year | Returns all distinct quarter values present in the column. E.g., Q1 2010 |
Month & Year | Returns all distinct month values present in the column. E.g., March 2010 |
Week & Year | Returns all distinct week values present in the column. E.g; W1 2010 |
Full Year | Returns all distinct dates present in the column date. E.g., 1/1/2011 |
Date & Time | Returns all distinct date and time pairs present in the column. E.g. 01/12/2010 00:10:07 hrs. |
Function | Description |
Quarter | Helps identifying seasonal trends based on quarter across all years. E.g., Q1, Q2. |
Month | Helps identifying seasonal trends based on months across all years. E.g., January, February. |
Week | Helps identifying seasonal trends based on weeks across all years. E.g., Week 1, Week 2. |
Week Day | Helps identifying seasonal trends based on week day across all years. E.g., Sunday, Monday. |
Day of Month | Helps identifying seasonal trends based on day of month across all dates. E.g., 1 to 31. |
Hour of Day | Helps identifying trend across hours in a day. E.g., 0 to 23hrs. |
Function | Description |
Actual Values | All the distinct values in the column will be listed. |
The following tables list all the functions along with the description of their functionality that are applicable for Data field.
Function | Description |
Sum | Returns the sum of all the values in the column. The summation will be done at each category/group level. |
Maximum [Max] | Returns maximum values in the column. |
Minimum [Min] | Returns minimum values in the column. |
Average [Avg] | Returns Arithmetic mean of all the values in the specified column. |
Standard Deviation | Returns the standard deviation of the column. |
Variance | Returns the variance of the column. |
Count | Returns a count of number of values in the column. |
Distinct Count | Returns the number of distinct value in the column. |
Function | Description |
Count | Returns the number of date values in the column. |
Distinct Count | Returns the number of distinct date value in the column. |
Function | Description |
Count | Returns the number of values in the column. |
Distinct Count | Returns the number of distinct value in the column. |
When creating pivots, you can choose how to summarize data i.e., by Sum , Max , Min , Average or by Count in a column, depending on its data type. Apart from these, Virtutem Analytics also provides advanced summarizing options, which allows you to summarize data values in a column based on other values in the column. For example you can display a running total of sales over each year or you can display the percentage for each region's sale of a product compared to the total sales.
Following are the functions available for advanced summarization:
FUNCTION | DESCRIPTION |
% of Row | Displays data as a percentage of the total for each row. |
% of Column | Displays data as a percentage of the total for each column |
% of Total | Displays values as a percentage of the grand total of all the data in the report. |
Running Total | Displays data in successive cells of the report as a running total. You must select the base field based on which you want to show the items in a running total. |
Difference From | Displays the data in each cell as the difference from the value in the previous cell, based on the base filed provided. |
% of | Displays the data in each cell as a percentage of the value in the previous cell, based on the base field provided. |
% of Difference From | Displays the data in each cell as a percentage of differences from the value in the previous cell, based on the base field provided. |
A useful feature of pivot tables is that you can filter columns, to display only required data. Virtutem Analytics allows you to filter a column for specific ranges, individual values, date ranges, etc. Depending on the data type of the column. Virtutem Analytics offers various filtering options like filter based specific numeric ranges, date ranges, individual values, top 10, bottom 10 etc., Virtutem Analytics also allows you to apply multiple filters (based on multiple columns) on a pivot . The filtering option discussed in this topic can be applied only when you are designing a Pivot Table (i.e when you are in design mode) and not in (pre) view mode.
To apply a filter, after you have created the required Pivot view:
The Filtering options are the same for all types of reports that you create in Virtutem Analytics namely charts, pivot table & summary views. The filtering options provided varies based on the data type of the column dropped. Refer to Filters section under Charts topic to know about various Filter Options and more.
Virtutem Analytics also allows you to include dynamic filters capability in the Pivots view mode called User Filters . User filters enables your users who access the report, to apply filters on the report data displayed using the filter columns exposed as part of User Filters. The filter columns included in User Filters can be displayed using a variety of display components like Drop Down boxes, Slider, Date range chooser etc., to suit your needs.
Steps to provide User Filters are same for all types of reports that you create in Virtutem Analytics . Refer to User Filters section under Charts topic for details on how to provide User Filters for various column types (Data types).