To begin your investigation, simply drag and drop the variables from the project tree into the analysis area. When doing so, you see several analysis drop zones, which enable you to create a simple cross-tab, add filters, apply values, or change weights and projections.
In this article
1. Drag and Drop into the Analysis Area
To begin an analysis click and drag an item (or items) from your project tree to the different drop zones within your analysis area.
The analysis area initially presents three drop zones: Down, Across, and Discover.
When creating an analysis table, use the Down drop zone to view data in rows, and select Across to organize information into columns.
Analysis Drop Zone Features
When moving items:
- The selected drop zone is highlighted around the perimeter with an orange dotted line.
- The drag pin will display.
- The number indicates how many items are being dragged.
- A green drag pin indicates that the item can be moved to this zone.
- A grey drag pin indicates that the item cannot be moved to this zone.
- Once one axis is in a drop zone, other drop zone options become available.
- You can drag different combinations of variable types into the across, down, and filter drop zones. This excludes weights and projection items.
Review this diagram to see which variables can be used in each drop zone:
The size of the project has no technical limitations. However, the number of records and the number of sources influence the time required for analysis.
The more items included in an analysis (cube), the longer it will take to run and render it to the screen. For ease of interpretation, we recommend keeping the number of cells in an analysis to under 10,000 cells (e.g. 100 rows x 100 columns), although performance degradation will not occur until well beyond that.
2. Standard Analysis Drop Zones
Using the down or across drop zones is the primary form of analysis. Once in use, other drop zones become available; this will allow you to dig deeper into your data.
All variable types except Weight and Projection variables, can be dragged to the down or across drop zones.
a. Down Drop Zone
The down axis is the 'how' you want to compare the item. For example, how the brand usage differs in terms of various demographics.
- Primary form of analysis
- Y-axis on your analysis table or graph.
b. Across Drop Zone
The across axis is the 'what' to compare item. For example, a brand or a list of brands.
- Primary form of analysis
- X-axis on your analysis table or graph.
Down/Across Drag and Drop Options
After making your initial selection (either down or across), you will have access to additional options as you drag and drop more variables into your analysis. These options include:
- Replace removes the previous selection
- Add appends to the previous selection
-
Nest adds another layer/dimension to the analysis
- Multiple levels of nesting is supported
*Click the links for Replace, Add and Nest above to learn more about each feature.
- Create your analysis
- Drag an axis into the down drop zone and use Replace to replace the existing axis
- Drag an axis in and use Add to add the axis to the same drop zone
- Drag and axis in and user Nest to create a nested analysis
Other Standard Analysis Drop Zones
Click the following links to learn about each of the drop zones.
3. Discover Drop Zone
To use the Discover drop zone, discover descriptors Learn more about discover descriptors. must first be setup in the project. The Project Owner may have created these, but if not, a Creator or Explorer can create their own set of discover descriptors.
From the project tree, select the group you are interested in profiling (i.e. Discover selection) and drag it into the Discover drop zone.
Once you see the discover analysis table, you can add or replace descriptors in your analysis with any axis from the project tree, even when it is not flagged as a descriptor. You can achieve this by dragging and dropping the relevant variables into the Discover Descriptors drop zone.
The same is true for your discover selections; you can add groups you are interested in profiling by dragging and dropping into the Discover Selections drop zone.
Learn more about Discover.
Where to from here?
Learn more about the Analysis Drop Zones
- Filter your Analysis
- Analyzing Measures
- Weights in your Analysis
- Analyzing with Population Projection