Row and Column Settings in Freeform Tables

Hey everybody, this is Doug. In this video, I want to show - you the row and column settings in freeform tables and show you the effect that they can have on the - data and on your ability to tell the story that - you’re looking to tell with your data. Now there are a bunch of settings - we’re going to run through in this video, but I’m going to start - actually with a table setting, and it kind of rolls down - to the columns and rows. And so if I’m on the table level here and I click on this gear over here, you’ll see that it says, - align dates from each column to all start in the same row, applies to the entire table, okay. And it’s checked by default. Now, what does that mean? Well, I’m looking here - at a table that basically just trends, unique visitors - visits and page views across last month. Right, so if you look at the date up here, I have last month and - I’m just kind of looking at this over time report, - we call it sometimes, or you might just call it trended metrics. Now I’m going to select unique visitors and right click on it and I’m going to add a time period column. Now, when I click on that, you can see that I can add the - prior month to this day range so it would be the - month before last month, you can see, I can do a year over year or I can do a custom date range. And I’m going to add this year over year. So you can see that it added - this column of August 1st through 31st for 2019, - last month is same month for 2020 and so it just added it there. Now it actually put it - on the August 1 2020, and August, 2 2020, et cetera. Put it on that line even though - it’s not that date, right? So you can see that what - it does is add these dates right in here. So you can see this is - actually August 1st, 2019, and then you can easily just compare that to the unique visitors for the last month, this current time period last month here. Now that’s probably what you would expect, but if we didn’t line that up, you can see that if I go back up here and turn off that setting - and then click here, you’ll see that it - starts with August 2019. And then as I scroll down and that ends, then there’s October 2019 and November, and I’d have to thumb through - so many pages of this data. And I know the data is kind - of weird, it’s fake data, but please just take a look at the fact that if these aren’t aligned, then you’re going to - have to scroll way down to see this year over year - comparison and that is terrible.

So we’re going to go back up - here and we’re going to turn that back on. And now when we compare these dates, we can see them on the same row instead of having to look down, you know, a mile to the other date. Okay, so that’s the first - one that I wanted to look at. Luckily it’s on by default and you know, maybe you wouldn’t even have notice. I just did want you to notice - that this little date comes in here where it says this number is actually not for this date. It’s for the one that’s right in there. Okay. Next, I’m going to go - down to my next table and I’m going to talk about - this percent of rows situation. So what does that mean? Well, when you have - multiple rows in your table, like you will, in most of them, you’ll see that there’s a percentage and you don’t have to show that. We’ll look at that in a second, but when you are showing - a percentage by default, this is the percentage of the column. And this makes a lot of sense - when you’re looking at it like this, and you’re saying, well, how much, we know what a percent is direct on the marketing channel - and what percent is email? Et cetera, right here. But in some cases you’re - going to want to actually have this percentage be - a percentage of the row, not the column. Now let me scroll down to - something that kind of simplifies it down here. Now, when I’m just doing it by date, then you know, these percentages don’t - make a lot of sense here, unless you’re again, wanting to know what percentage - there was on August 1st versus second versus third. But you’ll see that I’ve now changed this by going to this gear and changed this from the default calculate percentages by column probably - doesn’t really help you. But if you calculate this by row, it can be very helpful - because now we can see that based on those time periods, what are the percentages between other, this is actually desktop when - it comes to mobile device type and you’ve got mobile - phone and tablet, you know, versus desktop and you - can see this is, you know, 98% and there’s 1.6, and this is 0.3, but it does the percentages - based on this row instead of on a column. So again, this is going to be helpful - only in certain situations. And in my opinion, really, when you’re only putting up - dimensions here as filters for these columns, things you want to compare - in these different columns, then it’s a good to have this - percentage happened by row and not by column. Now, when I scroll back up - to my other table, and again, I have this now set by - column and that’s the default calculate percentages by column. It depends on what you want to know. If you have dimensions here in the rows that are non-date - dimensions that are here, we have marketing channel, and then you’ve got this cross tab report with this mobile device type - across these different columns, then the question is, what do you want this - percentage to represent? Are you really comparing - the marketing channels or are you comparing the device types? So again, if you are - comparing the device types, then by all means change it to row. And then you’ll be able to see, you know, for the direct marketing - channel, you know, what are the percentages across desktop, mobile phone and tablet? You can see that again, 90, - you know, 97.8% desktop, 1.9 on mobile phone and 0.3 for tablet when people come in directly - to your site, like for example, typing it in or through a bookmark. So again, in this case, it depends on what you’re - really comparing here. Okay, next, we’re going to scroll - down a little further and we’re going to go - down to a new panel here so we can see the date - really easily on this one and I want to to talk about - what we call dynamic columns. And so what this means is simply - that when the date changes, we’re going to dynamically - update columns in your table, dynamic columns, who would have thought? So you can see here that on this panel, I have this last week set as - the time period in my calendar, and if I take this day and - move it over here as a filter, now I have the days of - last week, you know, for visits, for these different - marketing channels here. So you can see that those - dates are exactly last week compared to this calendar. And so when I actually - changed the calendar to a different week and I’ll - just grab a different week here and apply that, then it - dynamically changes here as you would probably expect. But in any case, just wanted to show that - this is dynamically changing based on the time period - that you’ve selected. Now we’ll also change when you’re looking at non date dimensions as filters in your column here because if this is for example, top five, I’ve dragged over marketing - channel here to be these kind of top five marketing channels as compared to my mobile device type here and if I change my time period, and if these are not the top five anymore, then those will reset to the top five. In addition, if you don’t want - one of these to be dynamic, you can also right click on - one of them and make it static. And that kind of just sets it. So now when I mouse over that, you’ll see this lock as - opposed to these other ones that don’t have a lock - because they are dynamic. And so, if you drag over a - dimension, then by default, it’ll be dynamic. If you drag over a dimension - item, then by default, it’ll be static. See, I’ve dropped these - specific mobile device types in here. These are specific - mobile device type items. And so by default, they are - static and will not change. Okay, so anyway, just a - couple of things there. All right, let’s jump - back up to the top here. And I am going to grab a couple - of segments and go down here and I’m going to break some - stuff down by mobile devices and non mobile devices - solved, multi-select those and in fact, I think I’m going to get rid of this one, but I’m going to multi-select all these, and then I’m going to drag these over. So we have a number of columns there so that I could show you that - as we say, shrink this table, let’s just kind of - grabbed this whole thing, you’ll be able to see that the - text wrapping is pretty good and it keeps us available - there as far as being able to really see the entire - thing as we make this bigger and smaller and et cetera. So anyway, that’s one of the - items is that this text rapping makes it easy to see - these different headings. Okay, now I’m going to grab - all of these and also show you that you can actually change - the settings on columns all at the same time and I - could grab these six down here, but it’s really the same as - grabbing all three of these, as long as those are all there and I’m going to grab this and now I can make changes - to the entire table by checking or unchecking, - these boxes, et cetera. So you can see here that I - can take away the totals. And those are gone now - from the top of the table, I could add the grand total, - which is like, you know, this number out of that number. And these are the same right - now because I don’t have a filter happening there, but - I don’t need to see those. So I can take those away. If you’d rather just see the - percentages or the numbers only you can de-select the other one, there’s numbers being taken away, bring those back, - percentage being taken away and I’ll put those back. Again, it depends on what - the best way is for you to tell the story of your data. You’ll see also these anomalies, I mean this little triangle - up in the corner here, that means there’s an anomaly. And so you can see if I mouse - over that, it’ll show that, you know, this anomaly is that this - number is 51% above expected, et cetera. So you can show those or not. I can take those away. I can put those back. If you don’t want the header text to wrap, then of course you can take that away and they will not wrap. If I had some zeros in here, I could kind of take them away - by just taking away the value you can take away the background. So you’ll see here, there’s kind of some bar graph background as per my selection and - so if I put that back, that’s the bar graphs right there. And you can change that - to conditional formatting. So anyway, just kind of - some standard settings here, I just wanted to show - you that for each column or for all the columns at - once, if you multi-select, you can go through here - and set these settings the way that will be the - most effective for the people who are going to look at these numbers. So I hope that was helpful. Make sure that you go through your tables and set the settings - that will be best for you and good luck. -