Freeform Table Breakdown auto apply

[Sergei_Kalinichenko]

Ho there!

Is there any hint on how to set up breakdowns to apply automatically to the items that appears in the table? I got a question from my mates: they have campaign codes for digital campaigns and would like to see pages breakdown where a quotes were requested. They select specific month, select all lines and apply breakdown, but while the date range is rolling every next time they see different set of campaign codes and not all of them are with breakdowns. I'm wondering if there is a trick of how to force Workspace to apply breakdowns to these new lines. 

Thanks!

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Here's the trick I use... 

When building my table, I try to get as many lines to show as possible (as close to the max 400 rows as I can (sometimes this just requires pulling back a few months or years of data), then I select all of those and do my breakdown. Just like you would normally do... 

Now here is where the trick comes in, on the header of the dimension, I click on the gear... then I select "Breakdown by position"

The normal behaviour "locks" the breakdown to the value, so if you have:

• value 1
  • Breakdown...
• value 2
  • Breakdown...
• value 3
  • Breakdown...

Next month you with get:

• value 4
• value 5
• value 1
  • Breakdown...

However, if you lock it to the position.. the no matter what the values are, the breakdown will lock to position 1, 2, 3, 4 etc so you will get:

• value 4
  • Breakdown...
• value 5
  • Breakdown...
• value 1
  • Breakdown...

Because the breakdown is locked to the position, you now understand why I potentially pull many months or years of data... once the setting is changed, I change the date range back to something reasonable... so if there are only 5 values this month, and next month may have 10, all rows will maintain their breakdowns.

[Sergei_Kalinichenko]

Hi Jennifer! 

Thanks, that solves most of the cases!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You're welcome

[Biggsy50]

Does this nice solution work for breakdowns of the breakdowns @Jennifer_Dungan? So if all the new 'values' break down as expected, what about a 2nd level of breakdowns underneath that, e.g. Desktop/Mobile.

• value 4
  • Breakdown 1
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
  • Breakdown 2
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
  • Breakdown 3
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
• value 5
  • Breakdown 1
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
  • Breakdown 2
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
  • Breakdown 3
    
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
• value 1
  • Breakdown 1
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
  • Breakdown 2
    • Desktop
    • Mobile
  • Breakdown 3
    
    • Desktop
    • Mobile

Thanks,
Steve Biggs

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Hey Steve,

Each level has it's own setting... and unless you are using the "Table Builder", you have to set the breakdown for each breakdown row....

Now, I believe that if you add your first level, change the breakdown and then add additional levels, they take on the parent breakdown behaviour.... it didn't used to work like that... you used to have to manually set every level.

However, if your table is already built with the breakdowns, I believe that the setting only impacts the individual selection....

But, one way or another, yes, you can make the entire breakdown chain go by position... with various levels of effort.