• About Fields
• Viewing the Definition of a Field
• Viewing the List of Available Fields
• Finding a Field
• Adding a Field
• Re-Arranging Fields
• Renaming a Field
• Removing a Field
• About Field Hierarchies
• Managing Fields in Large Reports
• Incompatible Fields (..."cannot be broken down by...")
• When Your Report Does Not Display Any Data

About Fields

Examples of Fields include "Sales Revenue," "Profit Margin," "Product Name," "Region Name," and "Fiscal Year." Fields are what define the content of your report.

The following types of fields are available:

• Level Fields (Names, Types, Categories, etc.): Level fields are most often text-based. Product Name is an example of a Level field. Snow sports and Cycling are examples of possible values for the Product Name field – those individual values are often referred to as members of that level.
• Time Period Fields: Fiscal Year and Order Month are examples of Time Period fields. Possible values for those fields could be 2004 and Jan-2006, respectively.
• Measure Fields: Measure fields are numeric and most often represent business metrics. These types of fields are designed for summing, dividing, creating averages, etc. Sales Revenue and Profit Margin are examples of Measure fields.

Fields are color-coded by type in both the report and the Available Fields pane. The colors are assigned as follows:

• Level Fields and Time Period Fields: Orange
• Measure Fields: Blue

You can create a report without any knowledge of field types, but knowing how field types work can sometimes help you understand how different charts display data and how filters work together.

Viewing the Definition of a Field

Complete the following steps to view the definition of a field:

1. Right-click the field name (in the report or in the list of available fields).
2. Select Tell me about... from the menu to open the About... dialog box.

The About... dialog box provides the following information:

• Name: The name of the field as it appears in this report.
• Type: The type of field. For more about field types, see About Fields
• Description: The description of the field.

If a dimension has a number in parenthesis next to it in the field list, that means that it has member properties associated with it. If you open the field layout, you can see your dimensions in either the Row Labels or Col Headers fields, depending on how you have them oriented. To constrain a dimension by controlling its member properties, right-click on a dimension in the row label or column header fields, then select Show Properties from the context menu. A sub-menu with all available member properties will appear. Check or un-check the member property boxes to add or remove them from the report.

Viewing the List of Available Fields

To see the list of fields that are available to you when you build your report, click the Show Fields button to display the Available Fields pane. You may organize the list in three ways:

• By Category (default). This grouping can be changed by an administrator. See Managing Fields and Analysis Areas.
• By Type. Lets you see the list where all measure fields (blue) come first, followed by level fields (orange).
• A->Z. No grouping.
• By Schema. This displays the grouping as defined by the administrator in the cube’s underlying schema.

To change the organization, simply click the View button next at the top of the pane.

Finding a Field

To find a field, first click the Add more fields onto the report button on the toolbar to display the Available Fields pane if it is not already displayed.

Then, type in the first characters of the field name in the Find box.

Adding a Field

Complete the following steps to add a field to the report.

1. Click the Add more fields onto the report button to display the Available Fields pane if it is not already displayed.
2. Choose from one of the following methods to add a field to the report:
   • Select a field, and drag it into the Report pane. A visual indicator (black line) lets you place the field where you want it.
   • Select a field and drag it into the Layout Panel.
   • Right-click a field, and select Add to Report.
   • Double-click a field.

Note: If a field that is already in the report is part of a hierarchy, you can access related fields by clicking the field in the report and selecting Also Show from the menu. See About Field Hierarchies.

Re-Arranging Fields

Sometimes you need to re-arrange the fields that are already in your report. In a table report, the easiest method is to simply drag the field to a new location. In chart mode, you open the Field Layout area.

Method 1: For table reports, simply drag the field header to the new location. Note that measure fields (blue) will always be placed on the right side.

Method 2: To re-arrange fields using the Field Layout pane, do the following:

1. Click the Show Field Layout button to display the Field Layout pane.
2. Select and drag field symbols within and between the three different zones.You can only move a field within zones of the same color (blue for measures and yellow for levels) as the field.

Renaming a Field

To rename a field within a report, do the following:

1. Right-click the field you want to rename in the report.
2. Select Edit... or Column Name and Format... from the menu to open the Edit... dialog box.
3. Enter the new name in the Name field. (Note: You can also view the original name of the field from this dialog box.)
4. Enter the plural version of the new name (if applicable) in the Plural Name used within this report field. (Note: Plural versions of a field name are useful because the Pentaho interface often uses field names in menus and dialog boxes. If you enter a plural version of the new field name, it automatically will be used in situations where the plural form is grammatically correct.
5. Click the OK button to save the new field name.

The renaming has no effect outside the report and a user can always find out the original name by viewing the definition of the field.

Note:To remove a modified (renamed) field name, open the Edit...dialog box and delete the existing entries using the Backspace key.

Removing a Field

Complete one of the following actions to remove a field from a report:

• Method 1: Drag the field to the lower right corner (a trash can will appear) or into the Available Fields area.
• Method 2: Click on then name of the field you want to remove, and select Remove from Report from the menu.

About Field Hierarchies

Some level fields (time periods, names, types, categories, etc.) belong to field hierarchies. Here are two examples of field hierarchies:

• Product Line -> Product Name
• Year -> Quarter -> Month -> Week -> Day

The field hierarchies have the purpose of making it easier and faster to drill down into detailed data on a report and as a user, you can work with reports without realizing that some fields are grouped into hierarchies.

The field hierarchies help you in two primary ways. First, it provides a quick and easy way to drill into more details on a report:

• Clicking on a level field (e.g. "Fiscal Quarter ") on the report and select Also Show from the menu. If the field is part of a hierarchy, all these fields will be available for selection.
• Clicking on a level field value (e.g. "2007") on the report. The menu contains the option Keep Only 2007 and Show its Quarters

Second, when creating a filter, field hierarchies narrow down the list of available values. For example, if you have a filter Product Line="Snow Sports", then the list of possible choices when you filter Product Names are limited to the products that are part of the Snow Sports product line.

In addition, field hierarchies sometimes control how fields are placed onto the report. For example, fields from the same field hierarchy need to be placed on the same axis (row/column) and the report will automatically enforce this rule as you move and arrange your fields.

Managing Fields in Large Reports

You can add fields that have an arbitrary number of values, but large reports will be truncated.

Truncated table reports differ from full reports in the following three ways:

• The Report Status Bar will display the number of rows/columns shown versus the number of rows/columns in the full report. Cells will be cut until the number of cells is less than or equal to 2000 (this limit can be increased by the administrator). Rows are cut first (down to a minimum of 10 rows), followed by columns. This technique ensures that you still get a good sample of the row values despite the truncation.

• Subtotals and Grand Totals are not displayed unless all participating data is displayed.
• A message at the end of the report will inform you of the truncation. Note that the data in the cells does not change because of the truncation.

For charts, there is a maximum value of plot points that can be displayed on any axis. That limit is different depending on the type of chart and based on the amount of data that can reasonable fit on a screen. The limit can be changed in Chart Options.

When Your Report Does Not Display Any Data

In some situations, your report might not display any data. The table below outlines the most likely scenarios and their solutions.

• Working with Filters
• Working with Calculations