I also posted some questions related to what histograms show when segments are applied at the panel level (they can't be applied on the histogram itself which is also a limitation) to the community that I'm hoping somebody can answer.
- The reason calculated metrics are not supported in histograms is because histograms use segments to calculate the bucket totals. Calculated metrics are not supported within segments (segments ARE supported within calculated metrics, however). There are many reasons for why this is the case - much of the time it doesn't make sense (we recognize that sometimes it does), etc - and we would need make some major platform changes to make this happen. However, we are always considering these types of things.
- @MikeT1 - You can actually apply segments just to the histogram if you show the data source (table) for the histogram, and then apply a segment over the top of the entire table.
I do see value in adding this feature. Here the usecase:
You want to see the distribution of #pageviews for page X. Applying a segment (which selects page equals X) on the top of the table would not reflect the distribution of #pageviews for page X. What does it reflect? Eg Segment 2: In fact this number is the number of visitors with 2 pageviews from which page X was (at least) one. So, it is not that the 2 pageviews apply necessarily both to page X.
Why am I certain about this
1) The segment is on a visitor level
2) Pageviews for Segment 2 is not equal to 2x #unique visitors, or pageviews for segment 3 is not equal to 3x #unique visitors,…. which would be the case if the histogram was reflecting the distribution of #pageviews page X
If we would like to have this insight at this moment, we would need to trigger a new custom event when this page is viewed. To do this for every page or value of another dimension (eg type op application, pagetype,...) we would need to create a lot of custom events (which is not feasible).
Archiving as a duplicate of Use Calculated metrics inside segments , because the root of this limitation is not being able to use calculated metrics in segments.