Auto Apply Segment Breakdowns per Month Added

[skatofiabah]

Hello,

I have a rolling calendar based on previous EOM last date as the most recent date. I have the "Month" Dimension in my freeform table, but I lose all the other dimensional breakdowns I have on previous months. In other words, I have to go back in to the most recent month of data and add in the dimensional breakdowns to the month, in this example September 2024. Is there a way around this to auto-apply dimensional breakdowns when dates update in a freeform table in workspace?

Thanks!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Hi @skatofiabah,

Can you post a screenshot of what you mean? Dimension breakdowns of "Month" (if pulled in as the whole dimension) should roll with your date range.... If you specifically pulled in the Months one by one, those are "locked" and will not role.

Similarly, if you have months as columns, those will become locked dimensions.

i.e. Pull in Months as the whole dimension:

(These should always roll to match your date range)

Vs, pulling specific months:

(These will be locked specifically to Sep 2024 and Oct 2024, since these were specifically dragged dimensions)

[adamma17]

I've just started using AA and found this thread with the exact same scenario.  As a new user I'm baffled this is a thing.  id built a report and when the new month ticked over my segments were not inherited by the new month.  Back to the drawing board.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Oh, sorry, I missed the part about "breaking it down farther"

This is possible, with a little magic....

So, first off, if your table will always only show something like 3 months, this is easier.. but if people might change the range, so the default is 3 months, but they may want to check 6 or 12, etc months, there's a little more setup.

The first step to this is to change the setting on your main dimension to "Breakdown by position"

There are two behaviours... the default is to maintain the breakdown by a value... so let's say you are looking at referrer types, you don't need "Typed/Bookmarked" to be broken down by "Referring Domain" (since there is none),,, The table will remember which items should be broken down and by what, so if they change position over time you don't lose the specifics.

However, breakdown by position means that Adobe doesn't care what value is in position 1, 2, 3, etc... it will break down that value the same way in each position as the items change over time (like rolling months).

The only caveat here is that each position must be configured to have a breakdown for it to remember that setting... so if it will always be 3 Months, then you break down those 3 and your done.... if the user might change the date range to show more months, here is the trick I use:

I will increase my panel range to the maximum I can, so that my table is fully populated with months going way back... then I select all, make the breakdown (or breakdowns if I need multiple levels - note, you will need to set the sub elements to also break down by position if you need them). Then, once ALL the rows are set up, I put the date range back to my default.

Now, when the report opens each month, the breakdowns should all be set, and if someone changes the range to be more than the default, it will accomodate them.

[bjoern__koth]

Nice! Did not know that @Jennifer_Dungan 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

It would be nice if the "Breakdown by position" could apply to the entire chain (with the user given the option), so that it would require a few less steps... but at least it is possible

[bjoern__koth]

How about a product idea?

[skatofiabah]

Hi @bjoern__koth @Jennifer_Dungan,

Is there a way to submit a feature request like this? If I need multiple breakdown dimensions (like 3 or more) per month. Expanding out date ranges and manually applying and then looking back is too involving.

[bjoern__koth]

@skatofiabah check the "ideas" section in the community navigation 

[skatofiabah]

Hi @Jennifer_Dungan,

So it sounds like I can do the breakdown by position at a wider scale, but I would still have to apply each break down to each month in advance. It wouldn't be able to automatically apply it going forward?

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Yes, this is what "Breakdown by position" will do... 

So let's look at an example:

I've started by creating a panel for "Last 3 Full Months", and done a simple Month breakdown:

Now, you can do the next two steps in either order

I will create a breakdown on those 3 months by selecting all three, and breaking them down by Device Type for example:

Now, I will go into the settings on the Month dimension in the table, and change it to "breakdown by position"

(which means that instead of "Jul 2024", "Aug 2024" and "Sep 2024" being specifically broken down, whatever month is in position 1, 2 and 3 in my table will get the breakdown, so let me change the date range on my panel to Jan, Feb, March:

The breakdown remains.

Now, what I was saying about this above, IF user might change the date range to more than 3 months, you will have an issue (I will now change the date range to Jan - June):

Positions 4, 5 and 6 don't have breakdowns... because I only applied breakdowns to the first 3 positions....

So to get around that, I would actually build my table by extending the panel temporarily all the way back to Jan 2021 (which I don't even have data that old); but that will give me 45 rows to work with (if I were using something as the initial dimension breakdown that could have more rows, I will extend the date to try and get the max 400 rows available in Workspace to show).

I will apply my breakdowns to all 45 (or 400 rows, etc). Then I will go back to my initial 3 months... so later, if someone decides to look at This Year, or Last Year, or go back all the way to se our data retention period, I am covered.

If you need to break the second level down (if the values could be changing, you will have to set each of those to "breakdown by position" too:

You should also configure the number of visible rows on each sub-breakdown (sadly this has to be done one by one).

[adamma17]

This is great - much appreciated.  Also made me think...do I really need the last 53 full weeks in view :).

Thanks again!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Lol, that will depend on the report and what that audience needs.

Also, understanding how your users use reports helps... for me, I know that they always like to change date ranges to see previous periods, or to see longer trends... so I make sure to do these few extra steps to be safe.

[adamma17]

Just came across this component setting where it looks like any new free form table can have it applied by default (very bottom of image).  Yet to fully test but look promising: