Selecting data to add to a widget

This guide explains how to select data that you want to analyze and use to create visualizations in Data Explorer.

Introduction

To start working with Data Explorer, you first need to select the data you want to analyze. You can select the following fields to add them to your visualizations and widgets:

  • Dimensions

  • Metrics

  • Calculated metrics, which are displayed in green and marked with the icon. For more information, see Calculated metrics.

The selected fields are automatically added to a data table. Select at least one dimension and one metric to create a data table. You can then create a visualization based on the data table.

Prerequisites

Before you complete the procedure in this guide, perform all of the following actions:

Procedure

To create a widget, you need to select the fields and optionally configure filters for your data. To select data, follow these steps:

Selecting dimensions and metrics

To select dimensions and metrics, follow these steps:

To create a widget, select at least one dimension and one metric. You can select each field more than once. You can select any combination of dimensions and metrics from your datastreams, and/or dimensions and metrics provided by Adverity.

  1. Select the workspace you work with in Adverity and then, in the platform navigation menu, click Data Explorer.

  2. In the Dimensions & Metrics list on the left, in the From Data Mapping section, select a dimension from your data. Dimensions are displayed in blue.

  3. In the Dimensions & Metrics list on the left, in the From Data Mapping section, select a metric from your data. Metrics are displayed in green.

    The Dimensions and Metrics lists show all the dimensions and metrics that are available in Data Explorer.

    To make dimensions and metrics available in Data Explorer, you must fetch data in a datastream, assing a data mapping for the fields you want to use, and store a data extract containing these fields in Adverity Data Storage.

  4. In the Dimensions & Metrics list on the left, in the From Adverity section, select a dimension or metric provided by Adverity.

    Dimensions and metrics provided by Adverity are separated into three groups:

    Dimensions

    This group contains metadata dimensions, such as Create UTC, Datasource, Datastream, Extract, Workspace. The workspace dimension shows data for all child workspaces.

    Date & Time

    This group contains dimensions and metrics of the following types:

    • Dimensions specifying date information: Week, Month, Quarter, Day of week, Day of month, Day of year.

    • Dimensions accumulating data by time periods: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly.

      For example, the Weekly dimension displays a weekly summary of the data.

    • Metrics showing the number of Days, Weeks, Months or Years for which data is available within the selected date range.

    Date comparison

    This group contains dimensions that allow you to compare data over the specified time periods. For more details, see the following table.

    For an example of using date comparison dimensions, see Using date comparison dimensions.

    Date comparison dimension

    Description

    Previous N periods

    Include data for a period of the same length as the selected date range preceding the selected date range.

    The parameter "N" defines how many preceding periods will be included.

     

    For example, select a date range of one week and add the Previous N periods dimension with N equal to 1.

    The This period dimension will show data for the selected date range, and the Previous period dimension will show data for the previous week.

    Same period N weeks/months/quarters/years ago

    Include data for a period of the same length as the selected date range that occurred N weeks/months/quarters/years before the selected date range.

    The parameter "N" defines how many historic periods will be included.

     

    For example, select a date range of one week (e.g. April 1 to April 8) and add the Same period N months ago dimension with N equal to 1.

    The This period dimension will show data for the selected date range, and the Same period 1 month ago dimension will show data for the selected dates in the previous month (e.g. March 1 to March 8).

Selecting calculated metrics

In addition to dimensions and metrics, you can add calculated metrics to your widget.

Calculated metrics are metrics calculated based on other metrics. Calculated metrics are often the sum or the ratio of other metrics. For example, the cost per click (CPC) calculated metric is the ratio of the costs metric and the clicks metric. Other examples are cost per mille (CPM) and the conversion rate.

Adverity displays calculated metrics in the Data Explorer page in green with the sign.

Do not retrieve Calculated metrics from data sources. Aggregating calculated metrics from different data sets can result in incorrect data. Instead, fetch the underlying metrics from your data source and let Adverity compute the calculated metric based on the underlying metrics.

For more information on how to add a calculated metric to your widget, see Creating widgets with calculated metrics.

For more information on calculated metrics, see Calculated metrics.

Configuring widget filters

Filter data in widgets and dashboards to display only the information that you find relevant.

You can apply the following filters to a widget:

Date range filters

Use date range filters to narrow down the date range of the displayed data.

For more information on how to filter data in widgets by date, see Creating widgets with a date range filter.

Dimension filters

Use dimension filters to narrow down the displayed data based on the values of a dimension. For example, use a dimension filter to exclude the data of a specific campaign.

For more information on how to create a dimension filter, see Adding a dimension filter to a widget.

For more information on how to filter data in widgets using dimension filters, see Advanced dimension filter configuration.

Metric filters

Use metric filters to narrow down the data displayed based on the values of a metric. For example, use a metric filter to only display campaigns with more than 10,000 impressions.

For more information on how to create a metric filter, see Adding a metric filter to the widgets.

For more information on how to filter data in the widget with metric filters, see Advanced metric filter configuration.

What's next?

The data you have selected appears in the data table. For more information on data table configuration, see Configuring data tables.