Quick Start
Open the app in a second window and work through these beside it. About five minutes.
Open the sample data
Click Try it out with sample data. That loads
sales_actual.csv — about 58,000 order lines over 18 months.
Or drag your own CSV, TSV, Parquet or .drd file onto the page. Each file gets its
own tab.
Check the model
Click Edit model. Set Territory to level 2
so it sits under Region.
Scan the rest while you are there — every column's type, format and aggregate is editable.
Inference gets this file close, but Territory is one it cannot get.
Why can't it work out that Territory belongs to Region?
Because it doesn't. Metro appears under North, South and East;
Coastal under South and West. Knowing the territory does not tell you the region, so
no amount of looking at the data reveals the relationship. That is a ragged
hierarchy, and it is extremely common in real data — sales geographies name territories
locally all the time.
The contrast is in the same file: every Sales Rep belongs to exactly one territory,
so that relationship is discoverable, and the tool finds it unaided.
Category Level 1 / 2 / 3 are found automatically too, from their names.
Add the budget
Drag sales_budget.csv onto the page as well. Click
Combine sources…, tick both, then Combine.
You now have Revenue and Budget Revenue as two measures on one
dataset. Rows are stacked, not joined, and a Source column records which file each
row came from.
Make a variance measure
Edit model→Derived
measures. Name it Actual vs Budget and build:
Switch the operator to / and both operands snap to SUM: a rate is the
ratio of the totals. Build something incoherent and you get a warning inline — it never blocks
you.
Explore
Break down by picks the dimension in the table. Then:
- Click a row to drill in — it filters to that value and moves down a level.
- Drag across rows to take several at once.
- Use the breadcrumb above the table to go back up.
- Read the chips along the top — they are every filter in force. Click one to remove it.
- Ctrl-click a value in the sidebar to select only it.
Change the chart
Four buttons beside the grain selector:
| form | what it's for |
|---|---|
| line | trajectory and level — where a series went, how series compare |
| bars | one period against the next, as discrete quantities |
| stacked | the total, and what makes it up |
| 100% | the mix, with the total deliberately removed |
Getting several bands on the chart at once
The trend draws one series per selected measure, not one per value of a
dimension. To get a band per customer segment, make them measures: Edit
model→Pivot a measure across a
dimension→Revenue across
Customer Segment.
That mints one measure per value, and they behave like any other — bands on the trend, columns in the breakdown (a genuine cross-tab), a tile each. The slices replace the source in the selection, because the parts and the whole stacked together count everything twice.
Save a view
Save view captures where you are: filters, date window, grain, breakdown, sort, measures on screen, chart form.
Then Pin one. That sets which view a .drd opens on.
Export it
Generate report (PDF) prints the filters in force, the totals, the trend, and a breakdown for every level of the drill path.
Save compiled data (.drd) writes your model, derived measures, saved views and the data into one file — smaller than the CSVs and far faster to open.
Drag that .drd back onto the page. It opens on your pinned view, already there.
That's the quick start. Every step above works the same way on your own file.
For everything else — the model, measures, filters, the trend, and nine techniques worked through on this same data — see the User Guide.
Back to the app in the tab you came from — or open DashReporter here.