View
Overview
A view is used for exploring, analyzing and presenting data. A chart view is used for presenting data visually. Following are descriptions of the aspects and features of a view.
Table
A view is based on a table. Although the view can include data from related tables, the table on which the view is based upon is always part of the view. There can be multiple views of the same table showing different selection of data and different calculations and presentations.
Filter
The view has a filter that determines which of the table rows will be included in the view.
Field Selection
You can select the fields that are displayed in the view. You make field selections using the View Editor.
Type
The view has a type which is one of the following 3 types:
You can change the view type using the buttons above the view. When you change the type, the view still remembers the settings that were made for its previous type in case you go back to that type at a later time.
A normal progression is to start with a list. The list allows you to browse through the data and use the filter to focus on subsets of the data. For example, you can limit sales data to a particular region and product. You can then switch to a pivot. The filter remains and you can now aggregate the data along different dimensions of your product, for example by year and quarter.
The Pivot view is very powerful as it allows you to perform many types of calculations to analyze your data.
To visualize the data, switch to chart. When you do that for the first time, the chart would reflect the presentation of the pivot. You can then edit the chart further to get the exact visualization that meets your analysis and presentation needs.
The chart builds on the analytical capabilities of the pivot. This means that the various types of calculations that you find in the pivot view are also available in the chart view.
Fields Dialog
The fields dialog allows you to select fields, define calculations, and configure the view. The fields dialog resides in the sidebar. It has different options based on the type of view.
Limit
A view displays a screen-full of data. For quick browser performance, the size of a view is limited. The limit is based on the number of cells (or data points) in the view. The current limit is 18,000. Depending on the number of columns, that would limit the number of rows displayed. If the limit is exceeded, you'll see a message below the view saying the the view was truncated. To see more rows, try to reduce the number of columns. When you export a view the limit is substantially higher.
