Informational Dashboards

A crosstab table, also known as a pivot table, is the tabular equivalent of an informational dashboard. It contains one or more column headers and one or more row headers, and displays measure values at the row-column intersections.

For example, a train schedule displays dates horizontally across (column header), station names vertically down (row header), and departure times (measure) at the intersections. Not every row-column combination need have an associated measure value; for example, there may be combinations of date and station for which there is no corresponding train departure.

In general, the values at the row-column intersections of a crosstab table represent summary information of a measure, rather than point values. For example, a crosstab table with row headers representing ‘Salesperson’ and column headers representing ‘Month of Year’ might contain values at the intersections representing ‘Average Sale Price’ or ‘Maximum Sale Price’. The measure in both cases is ‘Sale Price’. The summarization method is, respectively, Average or Maximum. By using summarization, crosstab tables display large amounts of data in a compact form.


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To add a crosstab table to a Viewsheet, follow the steps below:

  1. Drag the Crosstab table element from the component tree into the Viewsheet grid.
  2. Move the mouse over the top right corner of the crosstab table, and click the ‘Edit’ button. This opens the crosstab data dialog box.
  3. In the left panel of the dialog box, expand a Data Block or an OLAP cube (hierarchical model). This expands the Data Block to show table columns, or expands the OLAP cube to show dimensions and measures.
  4. Drag the desired Data Block columns or cube dimensions into the regions labeled ‘Column Headers’ and ‘Row Headers’. You can change the order of multiple headers or measures by dragging them up or down.
  5. Drag the desired Data Block columns or cube measures into the region labeled ‘Measures’.
  6. (Optional) Specify group totals and ranking:
    1. Click on a row header or column header. This activates the ‘Group Total’ and ‘Ranking’ controls.
    2. In the ‘Group Total’ menu, specify whether group totals should be shown.
    3. In the ‘Ranking’ menu, Select the ‘Top’ or ‘Bottom’ filter, and specify the (integer) number of top or bottom groups to select.
    4. Specify the measure by which groups are ranked.
  1. Click on a measure, and select the summarization method from the ‘Aggregate’ menu.
    1. To display a univariate measure (‘Sum’, ‘Count’, etc.) as a percentage, select the basis for percentage in the ‘Percentage of’menu.
    2. If you choose a percentage representation, click the ‘Options’ button to select the dimension along which the percentage is computed (‘Rows’ or ‘Columns’). Percentage by rows uses the row totals, and by columns uses the column totals.
    3. To display a bivariate aggregation measure (e.g., ‘Correlation’, ‘Weighted Average’, etc.), select the second operand (column) from the ‘with’ menu.
  2. Click on the ‘Apply’ button (the arrow on the top right) to view the crosstab table populated with data.
  3. If desired, expand the crosstab table horizontally so that all of the column headers are visible.
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