Select and Exclude Data
Last updated
Last updated
# Select and Exclude Data
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One of the strengths of ADVIZOR is the ability to "select what you see" on charts in projects. We call that a "selection". A selection on one chart in a project is propagated to all the other charts across all the other pages in a project. This happens in simple one table projects, as well as across charts attached to multiple linked tables in a more complex project. As selections are made, underlying data can be in one of 4 states:
All Included and Selected. Data that is Selected will appear colored in the dashboard. For example, the bar chart below shows the Marital Status for a population. It indicates that every individual in the population is selected because all of the bars are colored.
All Included but some Unselected (e.g., not all Selected). Data that is included but Un-selected will appear gray in the graphical charts in the dashboard. Using the same example, we see that now only those individuals who have a marital status of “Married” are selected. The population with other Marital Status’ is still included but is unselected and, hence grey.
Excluded (removed from the base population). Excluded data will not be displayed in the dashboard. Using the same bar chart we now see that only the population that is “Married” is selected and all other Marital Status types have been excluded as we only see the “Married” bar.
Filtered (removed from the base population by a text filter, or a logon filter in ADVIZOR Server). This is logically similar to "excluding" data, except that chart and toolbar controls for "restore excluded" will not restore filtered data. The only way to restore the filtered data is by resetting the filter. Text Filters are normally used only on the first page of a project (which it opens on), and are used in cases where it is clear that certain populations are not going to be used in subsequent comparisons (for example, to remove "inactive" customers from an analysis of recent transactions).
The counts chart is a great way to get a quick view of what's selected, and what's not. The first line ("total count") counts all rows in the table whether included, excluded, selected, or unselected. (note: the counts chart can also show unique counts, sums, averages, etc. -- see help for the counts chart.) The second line shows what is selected, the third line what is included by not selected, and the fourth line shows what is excluded (both by filtering and excluding (see below).
Using a project to perform visual discovery™
How to select data on a chart: First: Left click and drag mouse over portion of a chart. All charts on all pages update instantly based on the selection. The selected data will be colored and all unselected data will turn grey. ADVIZOR shows stats on the percent of the selected to the whole available (i.e., non-excluded) population. You can then add in unselected data, intersect with other selected data, or subtract other selected data. Then, reduce the available population by excluding the unselected data. Excluded data is now logically removed, and no longer shows as unselected. Note that all graphical charts are set to show both selected and unselected available data. Text charts (datasheet and summary sheet are set in default mode to only show selected data).
How to exclude data:
From Primary (Core) Table first: Use the top toolbar to exclude entities and then refresh the charts to show all attributes associated with the selected entities.
From Local Table first: Right click on the chart to exclude data from the chart first and then update to show only entities who have some of the selected attributes.
For versions newer than 7.1: You can also exclude from the local table by using the chart toolbar. Open the chart toolbar (click on the arrow at the bottom left of the chart). Now select the "Exclude Unselected Items From chart Table First .
How to Filter Data: Text filters allow you to immediately drop the dashboard down to a subset of data.
Types of Selection (Selection Modes)
When you add more data, the other charts in the project will adjust to reflect the selection that has been made. In this case, all charts include the “Married” and “Single” population.
Notice in the Subtract Select Mode, when selecting the “Single” bar in the Marital Status chart, the Single bar goes grey as that population is now unselected.
Excluding data 1. From Primary (Core) Table first: Excluding from the top toolbar or “Globally.”
Use the Analyze ribbon to exclude entities and then refresh the charts to show all attributes associated with the selected entities. For example, suppose you have a data set that includes geographical information, such as the State a population of individuals lives in. They may have a primary address in Illinois and a secondary or seasonal address in another state. Now let’s assume you want to exclude all those individuals that do not have an address in the state of Illinois. When you exclude from the Primary (Core) table, all those individuals that have an address outside of Illinois will be excluded. However, you will still show a population in your bar chart that includes other states. The reason for this is that all those individuals who have a Primary address in Illinois may have a secondary or seasonal address in another state and the bars for those other states remained and were not excluded. See below.
In this case there are 67 individuals living in Illinois. By excluding the unselected from the Primary or Core table by using the “Exclude Unselected” chart in the tool bar, all those individuals outside of the 67 that live in Illinois have been excluded. However, some of those remaining individuals have seasonal or secondary addresses in other states and those records were returned because they still pertain to the 67 individuals that live in Illinois. What is excluded first are individuals, and then all addresses are updated for those individuals. 2. From Local Table first: Excluding from the chart or “locally.” Using the same geographic example as above, if you right click on the chart and then left click on “Exclude Unselected,” you will first exclude all address records not in Illinois, and then all of the people who don't have an address in Illinois.
In this case because the exclusion was executed locally, all those addresses that existed outside of Illinois were excluded. This is because the exclusion occurred FIRST in the table that included the addresses, not the table that included the individuals.
Filtering Data: Filters are a mechanism for specifying a subset of the data from a data source that is available in an analysis session. An easy way to look at filters is as a starting point before your analysis. Suppose you have a data set of individuals and decide from the outset that you want to exclude all the males from the data set before starting your analysis. If your project has a text filter set to “Gender” you can remove all the males from your project by deselecting “Male” in the text filter box. See example below. Notice that with both males and females selected there are 93,973 individuals represented in the data set.
Selector Shape: In addition to the selection mode, you can also change the selector shape. There are three possible selector shapes:
Toolbar Button
Description
Rectangular Selector. Default Setting. To use the rectangular selector, place the cursor in the area to be captured and drag the mouse while holding down the left mouse button. A rectangular selection box appears around the data that you’ve selected.
Circular Selector. To use the circular selector, place the cursor in the area to be captured and drag the mouse while holding down the left mouse button. A circular selection area appears around the data that you’ve selected.
Lasso Selector. Use this tool to select data by creating freehand selection borders around the data.
Replace Selection Mode - Default Setting. The data that you select using this tool replaces previously-selected data. Left click and drag mouse over portion of a chart, then release.
All charts on all pages update instantly based on the selection. The selected data will be colored and all unselected data will turn grey. In the page above, only those individuals who are “Married” are now the colored portions of the bars in the “Ethnicity,” “Gender,” “In Reunion,” and “Next Reunion” charts.
What does it mean to have selected and unselected data? When you have both selected and unselected data you are able to see the percentage of the selected data to the whole available (= non-excluded) population. In the example below we see that 71.3% of the available population are “Married” you can also see that 87.9% of the Unknown Ethnicity are "Married", which is a much higher % than the larger White, Non-Hispanic group. Then you can add in unselected data, intersect with other selected data, or subtract other selected data.
Add Selection Mode - Use this function to add data to an existing selection. Using the "Marital Status" example, if you want to add another Marital Status to the selection you have already made, in the Add Selection Mode select another bar on the "Marital Status" chart.
Subtract Selection Mode - Use this function to remove data from an existing selection. Select any bar on a chart that has already been selected and it will subtract that selection from your entire selection population.
Intersect Selection Mode - Use this function to select the “intersection” of two fields. This is essentially an “and” function. For example, you might want to select the population that is "Married" and "Unknown" ethnicity and "Male" gender.
Note that when the Males are deselected from the text filter, the counts of individuals in the data set changes from 93,743 to 53,531 and the counts also show that 40,212 individuals (males) have been excluded from the data set. See below. It is important to note that the only way to bring back the data that has been excluded due to a text filter is to reselect the filter and return the data to its original state. In this case, to bring back all of the males, you must reselect the “Male” box in the text filter.
