One of the most useful tools in Phocas is the Focus button, which isolates selected data and retains selections as you drill further down into your analysis. Use this in conjunction with some simple data selection techniques to answer your data questions.
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Select data
Select a row
Click the row number to select a whole row. The selected row will turn blue. To deselect a row of data, click the row number again and the row will return to white.
Select multiple rows
Either:
- Click on individual row numbers, in any order,
- click and drag your mouse across multiple rows, or
- click a row number, hold down the shift key, and then click another row number. Both rows, and all rows in between will be selected, and will turn blue.
To deselect multiple rows click on a row number or click and drag your mouse across multiple rows, starting on a blue row. You can Reset to deselect everything. Note this will also reset other settings that you have applied to the grid.
Invert your selections
Select a row (or rows) as described above, then right-click > Inverse selections. Your original selections will become de-selected, and everything else will be selected.
Select all rows
Click the top left grid square to select all the rows. Click again to deselect. You can also use right-click > select all and right-click > select none.
'Focus' to isolate selections
Selecting Focus isolates your selection and removes all other data from the grid. When you focus, any totals or averages shown will only relate to your focused rows of data.
To to this, select the row, or rows, of data you want to isolate and then select the Focus button:
The number of rows you have focused on will be shown in brackets on the blue dimension button.
Copy data from Phocas
You can copy rows of data or individual cells from Phocas to paste into another application, e.g., Excel. Either right-click > copy, or select a row or cell and then CTRL+C (or CMD+C on a Mac). Also see Export data.
View count, sum and average
Select an individual cell, or series of cells, to see the following information in the grid footer:
- a count of selected entities, or cells
- the sum of selected cells (if they contain numerical data)
- the average of the selected cells (if they contain numerical data).
Your administrator may turn off permission to view count, sum and average via your profile setting. (Administrators see Choose what users can do in the Phocas grid).
Exclude data from analysis
If you want to exclude certain entities from your analysis on the grid, you can use choose to Exclude selections. This essentially is a type of 'Focus' that uses a 'not equal to' selection. Note that you can also use 'not equal to' in Advanced search.
- Select entities that you want to exclude.
- Right-click and select 'Exclude Selections'.
When a 'not equal to' selection is active on a dimension, it is displayed with an exclamation mark on the dimension button and on the status bar.
Example - remove very large customers from analysis using 'exclude selections'
The grid below shows customers for the last three months. The top four customers each have significantly higher sales than any of the other customers, so we want to look further into our results without them in the picture.
The grid updates without those customers. The status bar and the dimension button will show the number of excluded selections with an exclamation mark. Clearing the ‘X’ next to the dimension will display the excluded selections.
Exclude rows is not available when two or more properties are selected without a code, or when there is an existing 'Or' group selection on the dimension.
Clear and reset
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ClearingOnce a row has been focused on, a 'clear' option (shown with an 'X') appears to the right of the relevant dimension, as shown below. Clicking the 'X' will 'unfocus' whatever has been focused on in that particular dimension. You don't need to have the relevant dimension active in order to clear. If a search has been applied, you will see an asterisk in the dimension button, as shown below. Clear works the same here - clicking the 'X' will remove those searches. |
To retain your selections
To retain your selections, but bring the other rows back into view, click on the top left grid square before clearing. All rows will reappear, but your previous selections will still be highlighted. Note: Your selections may not always appear on the screen, as they may be listed on another page. You can click through the pages using the arrows at the bottom of the grid.
Resetting
Use Reset, shown below, to cancel an existing analysis and start again.
Reset will clear all focused dimensions and deselect selections. Most buttons will revert to their default settings.
What Reset does and doesn't do: overview
It does reset:
- Anything that has been focussed on
- Mode (back to the default)
- Properties (back to the default)
- Measures (back to the default)
- Activity Filter (back to the default)
- Format
- Kind (back to the default)
- Basic Search
- Advanced Search
- Quick Filter
- Options > Hide Dimensions
- Options > Hide Status
- Options > Monochrome Exports
- Favorites and Alerts. That is, it doesn't take you back to the original favorite or alert - instead it removes the favorite /alert title and replaces it with the title of the relevant database, and then follows all the other rules in these lists.
It doesn't reset:
When you open Analytics, a Summary view of the data in the underlying database displays in the grid. From this high-level overview, you can drill down into the lower levels of detail to understand what is happening in your business.
The first step is to filter the data. You can then select and focus on specific data to deepen your analysis. You can repeat these steps and take other actions to deepen your analysis - you can drill all the way down into the transactions.
As you drill down into the data, the number of records in the grid decreases. The filters you apply display across the top of the grid, so you can track where you are and follow your train of thought, all the way down until you find the answers to your questions.
The following two examples outline how you can use a combination of the Analytics features to drill down into your data. You can find detailed instructions in the related pages.
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You are analyzing your Sales database and see there is a decrease in revenue compared to last year. Firstly, you want to find out which Sales Reps are performing worse this year compared to last year.
You have identified the Sales Reps, now you want to know what key products are involved.
You identified the products, now you want to know which customers are involved.
At this stage, you have applied two filters to the data and are looking at a third dimension.  You have identified the customers but you want to take a closer look at those with the lowest sales.
You can now see the transactions (lowest level of detail) for those customers, including the order and invoice numbers. But you need more information. Where are these customers based? Who is their Sales Rep?
You have added columns to the grid to get even more information, so now you can examine the data. For example, you might want to sort by Quantity or Margin in descending order, to see which Sales Rep is making the lowest quantity transactions or earning the lowest margin per sale. You found the answer to your question - it’s time to take action. You can speak to the Sales Reps in question to find out what’s happening. Perhaps you need to manage their performance or initiate a new sales strategy. |
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You want to find out if there are any customers whose pattern of behavior is changing, in particular, declining monthly sales (buying less products month on month). Firstly, you want to find out if there are any such customers.
You have over 13,700 customers, so you need to narrow down the list before you can find the pattern of behavior. You can filter the data in the grid by condition.
You now have filtered the data to display a list of 64 customers that exhibit the behavior you are concerned about. The filters you applied display in the header above the grid.  Next, you want to find out what products are involved.
You can now see a summary of sales for those two products in a trend over time but now you want to compare each customer side by side across those products.
You can now see the customers with their total sales, along with the sales for each of the two products.  From here, there are several paths you can take, for example:
You got some insights into the behavior of your customers, it’s time to take action. You have the opportunity to interrupt this declining trend in sales now before it is too late and you lose the customers. You might want to change the current sales strategy or implement other initiatives to stimulate sales. |
