Working with Pivot Tables in Virtuous Analytics

When working in Virtuous Analytics you have many similar functions to a spreadsheet. One of those functions is a Pivot table. You can use a pivot table to see a table of data organized by different ways. For example, you may want to see giving broken down by state. We can use a pivot table to organize our giving data in a way that gives us the information we need. Let's dive into it!

Getting Started

When getting started with Pivot tables, your first step is going to be getting the table of data that you need. This may be as simple as adding a table or a little more involved where you need to do a join or a union.  

Building a Pivot Table

Once you have your table, you'll select the charts icon, then select pivot table. 

This will create a new, blank element for you to create your pivot table. Now you're ready to add your pivot columns and rows. Use the Elements Properties menu on the right-hand side of the screen to drag and drop the correct column from your original table into the row or column category or by clicking the plus sign and typing in the name of the column you want to add to the pivot table.

Now that you have your rows or columns you will want to determine what values you're summarizing on. Just like when you added the row/column, you can either drag and drop or select the plus sign.

Once you have added your row/column and values, this is going to take our original table and summarize the content. The column that is created when you add the value automatically assumes an aggregate function. If you want to change the aggregate function, choose the arrow button beside the value column to change to another function.

Advanced Features

Once you've created your basic pivot table there are a few things we can do to make it more useful. You can:

• Drill Down or Up - on an element, you can choose to dig a little deeper into the information presented, kind of like a filter. Right-click on the cell to find options to Drill Down or Up.
• Just like other charts and elements you have filter options available as well. 
• Add additional tables, columns, or values. In the example, this may mean:
  • Adding City to the rows section so I can see giving broken down by city as well as by state
  • Adding a values column to see the number of contacts in each state broken down by city. 
• Changing names of columns and the table - this can be done by simply clicking on the Report name or the aggregate column to change the name. You will not be able to change the column or row names of the fields that you're pulling from your Virtuous CRM+ data.

Now that you know how to create pivot tables, you can check out these other Virtuous Analytics articles to get you using it like a pro!