1. The underlying data and hierarchies
In this demo, we’ll learn how to look at the underlying data of a visual, how to export data, and how to create hierarchies. Let’s start by looking at the underlying data. Sometimes, you’ll want to look at the data that is used to generate a visualization. Think of, for example, users that work a lot with Excel. They are used to always seeing the data. We can do this by clicking the three dots on the visual of interest and then selecting Show as a Table. By doing this, we can see not only the visual, but also the data that is used to generate it. From here, we also have the ability to export the data, to a CSV file for example. CSV means Comma Separated Values: it’s a text file where values are separated by commas. Let’s go back to the report. Note that we can also skip showing the table and export the data directly.
Next, we’ll learn how to create hierarchies. In the column chart we are looking at the month data, but let’s say we want a more detailed perspective on the date. It would be really nice to be able to drill down on the date in an organized manner. For example, in the Year-Quarter-Month-Day format, which is commonly used. We can achieve this by creating a hierarchy. To do this, we’ll go to the Table View. So, we want a hierarchy that starts out with the year, goes to the quarter (let’s use the short name), and then goes on to the month (we’ll use the full name) and day. Click on the three dots next to the Year column and select Create hierarchy. When we do that; a hierarchy is automatically created. We are going to rename the hierarchy by double clicking on the hierarchy name and changing it to Date Rollup. Then, we’ll add the Qrt and MonthName columns. We do that by right clicking on the column names and then adding them to the Date Rollup hierarchy. Next, we’ll also add DateKey, which will allow us to drill down to the day-level. By the way, you can switch the order of the levels in the hierarchy by going to Model view, selecting the hierarchy that has been created, and in the Properties pane you can change the order of the columns.
Let’s go back to the Report View. Note that we could have also created the hierarchy from the report view on the right here. Time to start using the new hierarchy! Select the Column Chart and change the Axis field from ShortMonth to the new hierarchy. Don’t forget to delete ShortMonth. When we do that, new controls appear at the top of the visual, which are the drilldown controls. Clicking the down arrow, turns on the drilldown. After doing that, it turns black, meaning it is enabled. If you don't turn on drill down, selecting a visual element won't drill down. Instead, it will cross-filter the other charts on the report page. As we covered earlier, the double arrow will get us down another level for all years, and the double arrow with a line combines information from the current and next level. Feel free to play with this on your own to get a feel for how drilling works. Let’s drill down one field at a time. To do this we’ll select the bar corresponding to the year 2018 to see the amounts by quarter. If we now click one of the quarters, we only see the months in that quarter of 2018. Hierarchies are a really cool way of organizing your data. Let’s see if you can create them yourself!
2. Let's practice!