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GDII FastStats Solution David Dipple
FastStats System Training Manual v1.00
Indigo: IFL FastStats System
©Adroit Data and Insight Limited 1
Contents Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 7
Indigo Fundraising Benchmark 2017 .................................................................................................. 7
Your IFL FastStats System ................................................................................................................... 7
Support ............................................................................................................................................... 7
Confidentiality & Information Sharing ................................................................................................ 7
The IFL Data ............................................................................................................................................ 8
Launching FastStats ................................................................................................................................ 9
How to Login ....................................................................................................................................... 9
The FastStats User Interface ................................................................................................................. 10
The Toolbar and Wizards .................................................................................................................. 10
The Toolbar ....................................................................................................................................... 10
The Wizards ................................................................................................................................... 10
The FastStats System ........................................................................................................................ 11
The Tables ......................................................................................................................................... 11
The File Area ..................................................................................................................................... 11
Folders ........................................................................................................................................... 12
Windows ........................................................................................................................................... 12
Template Ribbon ............................................................................................................................... 12
The Workspace ................................................................................................................................. 12
Copying or Saving an Object ............................................................................................................. 12
Other UI Functions and Areas ........................................................................................................... 13
Favourites ...................................................................................................................................... 13
The File Menu ............................................................................................................................... 13
Mini Tool Ribbon ........................................................................................................................... 13
FastStats Variable Types ....................................................................................................................... 14
Selector Variables ............................................................................................................................. 14
Array Variables .................................................................................................................................. 14
Numeric Variables ............................................................................................................................. 15
Date Variables ................................................................................................................................... 15
Unclassified and Unknown................................................................................................................ 15
Name Your Objects ........................................................................................................................... 15
Selections .............................................................................................................................................. 16
The anatomy of a Selection Dialog Box ........................................................................................ 16
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1: Name ......................................................................................................................................... 16
2: Level .......................................................................................................................................... 16
3: Criteria....................................................................................................................................... 16
4: Categories/Rules ....................................................................................................................... 17
5: Filter and Search ....................................................................................................................... 17
6: Inclusion Tools........................................................................................................................... 17
7: Main Tool Bar ............................................................................................................................ 18
Undo/Redo .................................................................................................................................... 18
Save ............................................................................................................................................... 18
Add Notes...................................................................................................................................... 18
Collapse/Expand ........................................................................................................................... 18
Settings and Options ..................................................................................................................... 19
Show Counts ................................................................................................................................. 19
Transfer to Microsoft Office ......................................................................................................... 19
8: Run ............................................................................................................................................ 20
9: Results ....................................................................................................................................... 20
Building Selections ............................................................................................................................ 20
Creating a Selection: Selector Variables ........................................................................................... 21
Adding Another Variable ............................................................................................................... 21
Selector Commands (AND/OR) ..................................................................................................... 22
Selector Commands (NOT/Exclude) .............................................................................................. 22
Using a Grouped Level Variable .................................................................................................... 23
Saving the Selection ...................................................................................................................... 23
Creating Branching Selections ...................................................................................................... 24
Selecting Array/Multiple Response Variables ............................................................................... 25
Numeric Variables ............................................................................................................................. 25
Free Form ...................................................................................................................................... 26
AND/OR ......................................................................................................................................... 26
Grid Interface ................................................................................................................................ 27
Banding Generator ............................................................................................................................ 28
Chart Tab ....................................................................................................................................... 28
TableTab ........................................................................................................................................ 28
Summary Tab ................................................................................................................................ 29
Equal Ranges ..................................................................................................................................... 29
Geometric Ranges ............................................................................................................................. 30
Quantile Ranges ................................................................................................................................ 30
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User Defined Ranges ......................................................................................................................... 31
Adding a Selection............................................................................................................................. 31
Date Variables ................................................................................................................................... 32
A Date Range ................................................................................................................................. 32
Relative Dates ............................................................................................................................... 33
Advanced Selections ............................................................................................................................. 34
Not ........................................................................................................................................................ 34
Levels ............................................................................................................................................. 35
NOT ANY ............................................................................................................................................ 35
ANY NOT ............................................................................................................................................ 36
NOT ANY NOT.................................................................................................................................... 36
NOT Summary ................................................................................................................................... 37
Tight and Loose ..................................................................................................................................... 37
RFV Selections ....................................................................................................................................... 38
Modifying the RFV............................................................................................................................. 38
Frequency ......................................................................................................................................... 39
Value ................................................................................................................................................. 39
Recency ............................................................................................................................................. 40
Recency Date Criteria .................................................................................................................... 40
Not Just Dates ............................................................................................................................... 40
ANY ................................................................................................................................................ 41
Combining Not and RFV .................................................................................................................... 41
Parameterised Selections ..................................................................................................................... 43
Values ............................................................................................................................................ 43
Values and Variables ..................................................................................................................... 44
Changing the Parameters.................................................................................................................. 44
Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 45
Cubes ..................................................................................................................................................... 45
The Anatomy of a Cube ..................................................................................................................... 45
Creating a Basic Cube ........................................................................................................................ 45
Adding a Second Dimension ......................................................................................................... 46
Transposing and Moving Variables ............................................................................................... 46
Modifying the Categories Seen ......................................................................................................... 46
Adding Additional Variables .......................................................................................................... 47
Modifying variables ....................................................................................................................... 47
Minimum Category Count ............................................................................................................. 47
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Adding a Dimension Filter ............................................................................................................. 48
Changing the Level ............................................................................................................................ 48
Adding Numeric Variables and Dates as Categories ......................................................................... 49
Making Selections from the Cube ..................................................................................................... 50
Thematic Shading .............................................................................................................................. 50
Selecting People Using Ranges ..................................................................................................... 51
Adding Statistics .................................................................................................................................... 52
The Statistics Menu ........................................................................................................................... 52
Statistics Options .............................................................................................................................. 53
Resolve Table ................................................................................................................................ 53
Other Variables etc. ...................................................................................................................... 53
Calculated Measure ...................................................................................................................... 53
Base Selection and Table .................................................................................................................. 53
Adding a Resolve Statistic ............................................................................................................. 54
Other Variable ................................................................................................................................... 55
Adding a Filter ................................................................................................................................... 56
Adding Cosmetic Labels` ............................................................................................................... 57
Selections ...................................................................................................................................... 58
Table .............................................................................................................................................. 58
Calculated Measures ......................................................................................................................... 59
One Variable ................................................................................................................................. 59
Using Two Variables ...................................................................................................................... 61
Adding a Legend ................................................................................................................................ 62
Grouping Statistics ............................................................................................................................ 62
Missing Statistics? ............................................................................................................................. 63
Changing the Primary Statistic .......................................................................................................... 64
Cycling Through Statistics ................................................................................................................. 64
Cube Size ........................................................................................................................................... 65
Partial Cube ................................................................................................................................... 65
Exporting the Cube ........................................................................................................................... 65
Trees ...................................................................................................................................................... 66
Adding Variables ............................................................................................................................... 66
Changing the order of the variables ............................................................................................. 67
Sorting the Categories ................................................................................................................... 67
Flattened and Collapsible Views ................................................................................................... 67
Collapsible Tree ............................................................................................................................. 67
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Flattened Tree ............................................................................................................................... 68
Adding Statistics ............................................................................................................................ 68
Exporting the Tree ........................................................................................................................ 69
Table Size .......................................................................................................................................... 70
Partial Tree .................................................................................................................................... 70
Visualisation .......................................................................................................................................... 71
Venn Diagrams ...................................................................................................................................... 71
The Basic Venn .................................................................................................................................. 71
Adding Segments/Selections ............................................................................................................ 71
Creating Selections from the Venn ............................................................................................... 72
Using the Venn .................................................................................................................................. 73
Exporting a Venn ........................................................................................................................... 73
Tool-Tips ........................................................................................................................................ 73
Hiding and Removing Selections ................................................................................................... 73
Changing Colours .......................................................................................................................... 74
Adding More Selections ................................................................................................................ 75
Adding Statistics ............................................................................................................................ 76
Resolve Table ................................................................................................................................ 77
Other Statistics .............................................................................................................................. 78
Adding a Legend ............................................................................................................................ 78
Word Clouds.......................................................................................................................................... 79
Publish ................................................................................................................................................... 80
Charts and Graphs ................................................................................................................................. 80
Chart toolbar ................................................................................................................................. 80
The Anatomy of a Chart .................................................................................................................... 80
Producing a Chart .............................................................................................................................. 81
Modifying the chart ...................................................................................................................... 81
Removing a Variable ..................................................................................................................... 81
Changing the level ......................................................................................................................... 82
Adding a Base Selection ................................................................................................................ 82
Changing the Chart Type ................................................................................................................... 82
Adding Another Category ................................................................................................................. 83
Changing the Variable Order ........................................................................................................ 83
Other Types of View ...................................................................................................................... 84
Paged View .................................................................................................................................... 84
Trellis View .................................................................................................................................... 84
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Clustered (Windowed) .................................................................................................................. 84
Adding Measures and Statistics ........................................................................................................ 85
Changing the Value Shown ........................................................................................................... 85
Variables & Other Statistics .......................................................................................................... 85
Changing the Statistic ................................................................................................................... 86
Chart Storyboard ........................................................................................................................... 86
Saving and Exporting the Chart ......................................................................................................... 86
Templates & Objects ............................................................................................................................. 87
Comparing Templates and Objects ............................................................................................... 88
Retaining the Selection in a Template .......................................................................................... 88
The Storyboard ..................................................................................................................................... 89
Adding Items ..................................................................................................................................... 89
Annotating the Story ......................................................................................................................... 89
Expressions............................................................................................................................................ 90
Logical Example ................................................................................................................................. 90
Expression Toolbar ........................................................................................................................ 91
Using the Expression ..................................................................................................................... 91
Equation Using Selections ................................................................................................................. 92
Date Example .................................................................................................................................... 93
Appendix 1: Other Training Materials ................................................................................................... 95
Training Videos ................................................................................................................................. 95
How to Videos ............................................................................................................................... 95
Informational Videos .................................................................................................................... 95
The IFL FastStats Training System ..................................................................................................... 95
Other Sources of Information ........................................................................................................... 95
Notes: .................................................................................................................................................... 96
Indigo: IFL FastStats System
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Overview
Indigo Fundraising Benchmark 2017 The Global Benchmarking project was established by the IFL Forum1, a group of leading INGOs to
facilitate fundraising performance analysis and benchmarking for both their INGO headquarters and
their fundraising offices throughout the world. In 2009, its inaugural year, 7 INGOs and 38 country
offices from 15 different countries participated. By 2016, 14 INGOs and 100 NGO offices from 25
different countries participated.
The project has provided a large base of metrics for each NGO to support analysis of their
fundraising program based on actual gift transactional data, and other information held at the
account or supporter level. This data can be used to create key benchmarking metrics within each
INGO and within the specific countries they operate to understand their performance and that of
other INGOs. This information has traditionally been provided in “static” form, so that the INGOs or
NGOs involved haven’t easily been able to access the underlying data and interrogate it themselves.
In 2017 the delivery of the information will be different to previous years. A state of the art Business
Intelligence platform, FastStats, is available to each NGO, their HQs and participating countries.
Insight reporting through the INDIGO Excel application is developed from the FastStats solution,
based on the underlying data, which has been audited and coded to a common set of definitions and
decodes agreed by the IFL Forum. Please note this is a separate deliverable. Where there are 3 or
more countries in a market, Adroit also produce an Indigo market summary report in Powerpoint.
Your IFL FastStats System Each organisation’s end system will vary in terms of which markets are visible. This is determined by
an access model. If you are a designated FastStats user you will receive a licence file from Adroit,
and this is specific to you. If you wish to change or re-allocate this license if you are no longer the
designated user, you must contact support@adroitinsight.com.
Support Adroit have created a number of training videos & information about the FastStats system, and
these can be accessed via http://www.adroitinsight.com/faststats-videos/
All support queries should be sent to helpdesk@adroitinsight.com.
Confidentiality & Information Sharing All participant organizations and users of the information are reminded that sharing of the
information is restricted to the participating organizations of the IFL Forum only. The global
information on all markets is only available to organizations submitting a minimum of 3 markets. If
you have any doubts about the rules surrounding the data use, please contact your international
representative.
1 The IFL Forum is a peer group of international fundraising directors in some of the world’s biggest NGOs and UN agencies raising funds from individuals, companies and foundations in multiple countries. Members are: ActionAid, Amnesty International, Care International, Greenpeace, ICRC, IFRC, MSF, Operation Smile, Oxfam, Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages, UNHCR, UNICEF, WWF and World Vision.
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The IFL Data The FastStats system that you will use for training is based on the data received for the IFL consortium charities. The variables include information on demographics, recruitment sources and gifts from supporters. Any information that could be used to identify a supporter has been removed and so is completely anonymous. The data has been generated from a set of stratified random samples of the IFL data and further anonymised, but it has been built so as to retain the original relationships. This will give the analysts using the training set a good sense of the data and the underlying dynamics. In this example there are two tables, Person and Gift. Each Person is unique but can have multiple gifts (or none).
The original charity and country information has been changed and now refers to three hypothetical
charities:
Children Without Families
People in Need
Save the World
Person
Gift(1)
Gift(2)
Gift(n)
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Launching FastStats You can start IFL FastStats Discoverer by:
Clicking on the FastStats Discoverer Launcher – IFL icon on your desktop, or
Navigating to: Start All Programs > FastStats > FastStats Discoverer Launcher - IFL
This will connect you to the FastStats server and launch FastStats.
How to Login Enter your username and password and select the System to be
used. For this course, the IFL Train system will be used. If you
have not been allocated a FastStats login and/or password you
should contact your FastStats co-ordinator/Admin.
When the required information has been entered and the
relevant system selected, click Login and FastStats will launch.
If successful, the following message will be seen.
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The FastStats User Interface The FastStats user interface is shown below and consists of four main areas.
1. The Toolbar and Wizards
2. The System and Files
3. The Tables
4. The Workspace
The Toolbar and Wizards
The Toolbar
FastStats tools can be dragged onto the workspace to help the user to analyse the data.
The Wizards
Wizards differ from tools: rather than being dragged onto the workspace, they route the user
through a number of directed dialog boxes so that the required task can be completed. It should be
noted that only a small number of Wizards will be available for the IFL system.
The tools and wizards that are available in the IFL system will be examined in more detail later in the
course.
System & Files
Tables
Work Space
Tools and Wizards1: Toolbar
2: System and
Files
3: Tables
4: Workspace
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The FastStats System The system area is where FastStats keeps all of the variables and allows the user access to the data.
The Tables The tables part of the system area shows the
database structure.
The table shows the relationship between the data
and tables. In this example there are two tables,
Person and Gift.
Each Person is unique but can have multiple gifts.
The File Area Objects, such as tables and selections created by the user,
can be saved and retrieved from the My Discoverer
Folders area.
The user should save all objects in the Private area or in
the dedicated organisation folder in the Public area.
Information saved in the My Discoverer Folders will be
backed up at the same time as the FastStats system. No
responsibility can be accepted for objects saved outside
these folders.
The FastStats variables are held in a
Windows-like folder structure and
the type of variable is identified by
an icon in front of the variable
name. These icons will be examined
and discussed in the next section.
To search for a variable, use the search function (denoted
by a magnifying glass) and FastStats will locate the
requested string. It is always a good idea to give variables
sensible names so that they are easy to find.
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Folders
There are a number of folders and the permissions are different for each.
Private (only you can save or load information from here – no one else can see it).
Public (This has been restricted to the Organisation and Templates – only Adroit can save
information here).
Organisation (Anyone in your organisation can save and load objects from here).
Adroit Standard Templates (anyone can load objects from here but cannot save or alter
information held here).
Windows Any window open in the Work Space can be seen
and used from here. This is especially useful when
there are a number of currently open windows.
This is why it is a good idea to give each dialog box,
open in the workspace, a sensible name; otherwise
it is difficult to use this area.
The above example is much easier to understand than the one
to the right!
Double clicking an item will bring it to the top of the
workspace.
Template Ribbon FastStats Objects can be dragged onto the Template Ribbon
and saved there; only the user can use these, as with saving
to the Private Folder. The main difference between saving an
object to disk and the template ribbon is that the selection
criteria are retained when saving to disk, but removed when
storing in the Template Ribbon. The idea is that a user
creates a template which is then used with different selections.
The Workspace The next area of Interest is the workspace; this is where all of the analysis and work is carried out in
FastStats. Objects can be dragged and dropped onto here and then manipulated.
Copying or Saving an Object To copy or save any of the objects, mouse over the dialog box
icon until it is surrounded by a red square. The object can now
be copied, either to save it or to drop it onto another object. It
should be noted that right dragging and dropping may give
additional options.
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Other UI Functions and Areas
Favourites
A user can save objects and selections here but they are only accessible to the user. In practice it is
generally a better idea to save work to disk as it is more easily compartmentalised into a sensible
folder structure whereas the Favourite area can become cluttered.
It is possible to create folders in the Favourites area but this area can become cluttered if care is not
taken.
The File Menu
Like most pieces of software, there is a menu system, although it is rarely necessary to access it as
most commands can be accessed from elsewhere or will be set by the FastStats Administrator.
One command that is very useful is:
Reset Windows Positions
If the user accidentally undocks a window
(e.g. the systems area) or deletes it, this
command will reset the FastStats system to
its original state and will restore all of the
windows.
Another useful file command is:
Window.Close all
This will close all of the currently open
windows in the Workspace
Mini Tool Ribbon
At the top right hand corner of the UI is the Micro Tool Ribbon. This allows access to a number of
useful tools.
Hide Tool Ribbon
Help
Open/Save
Copy/Select All
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FastStats Variable Types There are five main variable types used in the IFL system:
In addition to these there is a reference type variable that identifies an individual person or an
individual gift transaction. It should be noted that only one variable is string type variables.
There are other variables in a standard FastStats system, such as currency and date/time, but these
do not appear in the IFL System. The IFL system allows multiple currency types and so uses numeric
variables for this information. The currency variable type is the same as numeric, except that a
currency denominator (e.g. £) precedes the value.
Each type of variable is used in a slightly different manner and this will be discussed later.
Selector Variables This type breaks a variable into set of known groups or categories.
An Example of a selector
variable is Gender.
A person or gift record can only exist in one selector category. In this dataset a person cannot be
both Unclassified and Female.
Array Variables This type of variable is similar to a selector variable, but multiple categories can be selected instead
of just one. An array type variable is often referred to as a multiple response variable as more than
one category can be correct.
An example of an array is Contact
Permissions.
A person can have multiple permissions. In this example a person can be contacted by both email
and by post.
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Numeric Variables With numeric variables there are too many values to define as a selector and are not grouped into
individual groups. Numeric variable can be added, multiplied, divided, etc.
An example of a numeric
variable is Age.
People or records can be selected by defining a value or range of values. In the above example, all
people older than 50 are being used.
Date Variables Date variables allow groups of records to be used based on a date or date range.
An example of a date variable is Gift
Payment Date.
In the example, all gifts in 2015 are being selected or used.
Unclassified and Unknown Unclassified data has two main meanings; the first is that there is missing data, for example data has
not been supplied for Gender. The second is that there is no decode for that category when building
the dataset (Gender value of Z).
Unknown data is data that has deliberately been given that value, for example a supporter account
could be defined as B (both) or J (Joint) and does not indicate the actual gender. These two codes
have deliberately been coded as Unknown.
Name Your Objects When using FastStats people tend to create a lot of selections, cubes etc. It is always a good idea to
name all objects as you create them so that FastStats is more intuitive and easier to use.
All objects have the same way of adding a title: type in
the required label at the top of the object.
This is the selection given a more sensible name.
This is what the window tab looks like if the objects are not added: it is
unintelligible. This can also cause problems when objects are exported to
Excel.
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Selections One of the key aspects of FastStats is the use of selections. These have multiple uses including:
• Defining a base population for a set of analysis
• Creating logical values that can be used in reports and expressions
Each variable type is selected in slightly different ways and these will be examined in more detail in
this section.
The anatomy of a Selection Dialog Box
Before looking at a selection in detail it is useful to understand the anatomy and make-up of the
selection dialog box. In general, the selection dialog boxes have the same tools but differ in look and
feel on the right hand side (areas 4, 5 & 6).
1. Name of Object/Dialog Box
2. Level of Selection
3. Selection Criteria
4. Selector Categories/Rules
5. Filter and Search Tools
6. Inclusion Tools
7. Main Tool bar
8. Run Button
9. Results
1: Name
All dialog boxes and objects should be given a sensible name. When created they will be given a title
of New Selection n. This is also seen when other types of tool are being created: a new Cube will
have title of Cube n. A new title or name can be typed here.
2: Level
The selection can be created at different levels, depending on the make-up
of the FastStats database. To change the level, right click the current value
and the user will be given the option of changing the level.
If the level selected is Person then the selection will be built for each
individual person and at a Gift level then it will be built using the number of transactions. When
creating selections, ALWAYS set the required level first!
3: Criteria
This is where the selection criteria are built using the categories or rules on the right hand side; this
is examined more fully later in this section. The selection criteria can be built up using one or more
variables (of the same or different types). This area will be looked at in greater detail later.
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4: Categories/Rules
The selection categories and rules are defined here, by choosing specific categories or in the case of
a numeric variable a range of values. To select a category, click on the category selection box on the
left edge of this area. This area will be looked at in greater detail later.
5: Filter and Search
When there are a lot of categories, campaign codes etc., it can be easier to type in a value and
search for the information rather than doing it by eye (scrolling up and down).
Filter – this removes all of the categories that do not match the criteria
Search – this goes to the next category that satisfies the criteria
When searching, using the enter/return key will go to the next category that
satisfies the search criteria.
The criteria can be filtered or searched in a number of ways using the
values shown to the left.
Filter Description Contains F Search Description Contains F
With the search option, pressing the Enter key will take the user to Female.
6: Inclusion Tools
For selector variables only one of the tools is active, i.e. include/exclude.
The second tool is mainly used for Array/Multiple Response variable as it allows the logic to be
changed from OR to AND. It is not possible, in selector variable terms, to be both Female and
Unknown, whereas it is possible to be both a single gift and regular giver. This option allows the user
to select single giver AND regular giver or single giver OR regular giver. This will be discussed more
when Multiple Response variables are examined.
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7: Main Tool Bar
A number of useful tools and options can be accessed from the Main Tool Bar; several of these
options are the same across other objects and dialog boxes. For example, the Microsoft Office tools
can be seen on Cubes, Trees etc.
Undo/Redo
This allows the user to undo a change made to the selection criteria. For example if a variable is
mistakenly deleted it can be restored using these buttons.
Save
It is possible to save any of the FastStats objects and dialog boxes by clicking the save icon. This can
be carried out, often more efficiently, by left- or right-dragging the dialog box into the file area.
Add Notes
It is possible to annotate the selection (or other dialog box/object) by typing information into here. If
information has been added to the Notes, the colour of the icon
will change to yellow.
This information is also shown on the Cover sheet.
Collapse/Expand
To make the selection easier to understand, the criteria can be expanded or collapsed to make the
section easier to understand.
Expanded Collapsed
Undo/Redo
Save
Add Notes
Collapse/Expand
Selection Criteria
Settings and
Options
Show Counts from individual
tables/ variables
Transfer to
Microsoft Office
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Settings and Options
A number of options can be changed here and
some will be examined when the option is
discussed (e.g. Waterfall counts).
Show Counts
Counts can be shown for each
Variable/Category in either
compound or discrete mode as
selected under options.
Discrete: here the number
in each variable/category is
shown. For example, there
are 124k older people and
85k females.
Compound: here the
numbers are shown in
hierarchical order. For
example there are 124k
older people, but only 45k
older females.
Transfer to Microsoft Office
Selections, cubes etc. can be transferred directly to Microsoft office products. The options available
depend on the type of object being used.
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8: Run
This button runs the selection or other FastStats object:
A green button shows that something has potentially changed since last run.
If the button is blue then no changes have been made since the selection or object has been
run.
9: Results
When the selection is run, the number of people or gift transactions is shown.
Person Level Gift Level
Building Selections It is possible to build up a selection by adding all of the variables individually and selecting the
categories. A better way of building selections tends to be based around building blocks.
Rather than creating a selection combining both of these is one go, it can be useful to build each
separately and test each of the blocks as this makes checking a lot easier. The two can be added
together by dragging and dropping the Male selection onto the Female one. Mouse over the
selection icon for the Males until the red square can be seen and then drop it onto the Female
selection.
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Creating a Selection: Selector Variables This type of variable is the simplest to use as a person or gift can only be in one category (a person
cannot be aged 24 and 56 at the same time).
In this example the variable Gender will be used for selection purposes.
Drag and drop the variable Gender onto the workspace (note the top left hand corner of the
selection dialog box appears where the variable is dropped).
We are going to select Females
and so check the include box
next to the F (Female) category.
We will also give the dialog box a
more sensible name. The
selection query can then be run
by clicking the green run button.
It should be noted that the level
will be set as Person. Should a
variable in the Gift table be
dropped on the workspace (not
another selection dialog box) the
level would be set as Gift.
The selection criterion has now
been changed to Gender of Female
and when run, the number of
females is shown in the bottom
right hand corner.
If Males are added and the query
re-run the selection criteria would
be changed to:
Gender of Female or Male
The blue run button would change
colour to green to indicate that the
selection query needs to be re-run.
Adding Another Variable
A second (or subsequent) variable can be added by dragging and dropping it onto the selection
criteria area. Here older people are being used to give a full selection of Older Females.
The look and feel of the query can be changed by some of the options e.g. displaying all categories,
adding brackets etc. It should be noted that, by default, only a few categories are shown for
variables with a large number of selected categories.
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Selector Commands (AND/OR)
In the current selection older females are being selected. The user can change the AND command to
an OR command by right clicking on the orange AND icon.
A new menu will now be displayed. Click the Change Logic to OR and
the selection criteria will change:
Note that the orange AND has changed to a green OR. To change it
back to AND, right click and select the Change Logic to AND option.
It should be noted that all variables in the same level are changed at
the same time and cannot be changed independently. We will look at
the way to change parts of the selection to AND/OR later in the
document.
Selector Commands (NOT/Exclude)
The Exclude option was mentioned earlier: this allows a group to be excluded from selection.
Create a new selection for Females
and change the inclusion criteria to
Exclude.
The selection criteria changes to:
Exclude Gender of Female
In addition to this the Female
category on the right side of the
dialog box is highlighted in brown.
The selection will now select all
people except for females.
A similar result can be obtained by using the selector command menu
(as above) and selecting the NOT option; note that this is a toggle
on/off for NOT. Right click on the small box next to the selection
criteria: Gender of Female and select NOT.
It should be noted that NOT should be used with care as will be seen
later in this document when looking at advanced selections.
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Using a Grouped Level Variable
Some variables are created from others by grouping categories. One such variable is found in the IFL
dataset: Recruitment Type -> Recruitment Type (Group).
With this type of variable,
categories are grouped into
containers of similar types. The two
single gift (emergency and non-
emergency) categories in
Recruitment type have been
grouped up into a single category –
Single Giver.
Grouped Level variable are easy to
spot as they have a + on the left
hand side of the categories. This
can be used to show/hide the
original data.
Categories can be selected (included/excluded) from both the original and grouped data.
Another way to spot a grouped variable is that it is always
connected with the original but indented slightly.
Saving the Selection
The easiest way of saving the selection is to drag and drop it in to the file area (the Save icon can also
be used but dragging and dropping tends to be easier).
Move your mouse over the selector icon and a
red square will appear. Drag this and drop it into
the required folder; in this example the Private
area is being used. The selection is now saved.
The saved selection can be identified by the
name and the selector icon. This is another
good reason for using sensible names for
objects created in FastStats.
The selection could have been right-
dragged and dropped and additional
options presented (e.g. ‘save as a reference
file’), but this functionality is not being
utilised in this dataset as all data is
anonymous.
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Creating Branching Selections
So far all of the selections have been simple. One of the selections used was older females (55+
Female). Consider the selection Older (55+) Females and Young (under 35) Males,
If a simple view is created of Older Females and
Males, this returns a count of zero as a person
cannot be both Male & Female.
If the logic is changed to OR, this gives a count
of 180k people, but also includes older people
not classified as Male or Female.
To Create the required logic, the Males and
Females need to be separated into different
groups.
First create the selection Older (55+) Females.
Next drag the Gender variable onto the selection,
but note the thick black line with the arrow on
each end. When this appears, drop Gender onto
the selection criteria.
Gender will now appear below Females as shown.
The Male category can now be selected and the
age variable added by dragging and dropping it
onto Gender.Male.
The selection is almost complete. Change the logic
of Gender of Male and Age (band) to And, and the
logic of the two groups to OR as shown below.
The selection criteria are now Young (under 35)
Males and Older (55+) Females as was required.
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Selecting Array/Multiple Response Variables
This type of data is similar to a standard selector variable. The main difference is that a person can
exist in more than one category. In the example Contactables, a person can be contactable by none,
one or more types.
The main difference with the dialog box is the addition to the second inclusion
/exclusion tool.
If OR is used then the selection is
true if one of the criteria is true
If AND is used, then both have to be true.
In the AND version there are 128k people and in the OR version there are 215k people as the second
is a much looser set of criteria.
Multiple sets can be used and so in this example
people with Telephone and one other type of
contact are being selected.
Numeric Variables Numeric variables are selected in a slightly different way to both selector and array type variables.
This is because there tends to be a potentially large number of values or categories. For this reason it
is not possible to have a table of values shown as seen with selector variables.
In this selection we are going to
look at people whose first gift
was a Single Gift and then look
at the value.
There are three main ways to create Numeric Selections and
these are selected from the tool bar at the bottom of the dialog
box. The three types are summarised below. To select a
particular type, click on the required icon.
Icon Description
Free Form: this is the default option and allows the user to enter the conditions into a note
pad type interface to define the selection criteria.
A selector type or Grid Interface where the conditions can be built up using a more visual
interface.
A visual interface, Banding Generator, where the data is analysed and broken into groups and
ranges.
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Each of these types will be examined separately.
Free Form
In the same way that the selector type variable selection built the condition on the left side and the
actual values on the right side, the same can be seen for Numeric variables.
The selection logic use standard logic constructs:
= Equal To
> Greater Than
< Less Than
>= Greater or Equal To
<= Less or Equal To
>< Not Equal To
The above selects Single Gifts of more than €100.
AND/OR
It is possible to add more than one value to the condition by using the minus (-) symbol to indicate
TO. Any values on the same line are classified as an AND condition.
In this selection we are looking at people with a First Single Gift value over €100 AND under €500.
An OR condition can be created by starting a new line.
In this example, the selection is: First Single Gift value over €100 AND under €500 OR €1000 plus.
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Grid Interface
In addition to writing the conditions, the user can build them up using a selector type variable
interface. The first thing to do is to make sure that the Free Form notepad is clear or these
conditions will automatically appear in the Grid interface.
Click the include option and the
range options will be activated.
You will note that
there are two sets of
conditions activated,
one From and one To.
Click on the From condition and select the required condition. The default is greater or
equal to.
Next add in a value for
the From condition.
And then select the To
condition. There are
only three, including
do nothing else (blank).
As soon as there is a From condition selected, another line is added for any potential OR criteria.
Finally add a value for To:
The condition is now complete and can
be added to as required. In this
selection Payment Amounts between
€200 and €500 are being selected.
If the user switches back to the Free
Form input, the selection condition will
be seen there.
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Banding Generator Rather than setting individual criteria the user can create bands with the data using a number of
different scenarios. In most cases the ways of selecting numeric data (Free Form and Grid) are more
efficient than the Banding Generator. First make sure that the Free Form notepad is clear (unless
you want to restrict the data being banded). If the condition >1000 is in the Free Form notepad, the
banding will only be created based on the range over 1000.
Chart Tab
The chart gives a visual
representation of the
current distribution. Using
the type of banding shown
on the left.
TableTab
The table shows the
bandings used (here 50)
and the number of
people in each band.
By default 10 bands are
created and this can be
modified by the user, as
can the size of the bands.
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Summary Tab
The Summary tab gives
information about the
distribution of the data
and can be useful when
deciding the number of
the bands etc.
Equal Ranges This type bands the data based on internal distribution of the data, trying to break up the data into
both a sensible size/number of bands so that usable ranges will be created. By default, 10 bands will
be created and the size of these will depend on the range of the data.
The number or sizes of the bands can be altered by
the user by entering the required statistics into the
Bands Specified by area. Only one of these options
can be modified and the other will be automatically
updated.
To calculate the new bands, click
Here a Size of Bands of 100 has been selected and the ranges updated. It should be noted that the
Number of Bands has changed to 5. It can be seen that the populations of each group are quite
varied. There are over 50% of the data in the first group and less than 1% in the last one.
It should be noted that a selection has not been created, only potential ranges. Click
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The selection criteria will be set, it should be noted that the whole range of data is included and it is
up to the user to include or exclude any particular ranges.
Geometric Ranges This type of banding is not used very often in the charity arena. The working is similar to the Equal
Ranges in usage. Unlike the Equal Ranges having the same size for each band, the Geometric doubles
in terms of width, for each successive band.
To apply this type of range, click Update and then Finish.
Quantile Ranges Quantile break the data up into similar population groups; for example, if there are 10 quantiles
(deciles) there will be 10% of the data in each band. This means that the band ranges tend not to be
even.
The data values may mean that an equal proportion may not appear in each band as all values of the
same magnitude have to be in the same band.
To apply this type of range, click Update and then Finish.
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User Defined Ranges The user is able to define ranges in the same way as using the Free Form notebook.
To apply this type of range, click Update and then Finish.
Adding a Selection It is should be noted that the ranges will be based on the numeric variable in a univariate way. That
means that they will not be affected by any other variables in the selection. For example, if Gender
Male and Gift Payment Amount are in the selection, the ranges will look at ALL Gift Payment
Amounts and not just those for Males. To create a ranges based on Males, an additional selection
will be need to be added to the dialog box.
The ranges created are generally based on the level
of the selection. It is possible to add a separate
selection to the ranges.
Here a selection of Recruitment Type of Single Gift Non-Emergency has been applied the values.
It should be noted that this selection does not affect the actual selection; it is only used to help
define the ranges.
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Date Variables The final type of variable that we are going to look at is dates. People and gifts can be selected by a
range or specified dates and added to a selection.
The base selection that we are going to look at is Gift Payment Date at a Gift level and we will use
this to make a number of selections. To choose the type of selection, select the Type menu.
Select the type of date range. For this system, the normal type of selection
is a Date Range. Select this and a new dialog box will appear.
This dialog box allows the user to define the
date ranges.
A Date Range
To select gifts in 2016 change the Date values
by typing them into the date box or select
them using the calendar option.
From: 01/01/2016
To: 31/12/2016
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Alternatively, select the calendar option and shuffle
to get to the required date.
To do this, click the down arrow at the end of the
date box (highlighted in red) and then shuffle left and
right using the arrows (highlighted in green) in the
calendar.
Unfortunately when the selection criteria are created it is not possible to see what the range is,
without clicking edit.
Relative Dates
In the previous example a set of specific dates were defined to set the range. If the current year is
2017 then the date range 01/01/2016 to 31/12/2016 is last year; move forward a year and the range
no longer refers to last year and so would need to be updated manually,
It is possible to set up a relative date range so that it always refers to last year.
First select the Date Type of “A Date Range”.
Next we will set the start of the range and so we select This
Year Start of.
This would set the start
of this year, but we
need to start at the
beginning of last year
and so we move the
Start of Year
back by 1 year.
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Next, we do the same for our
end point.
Now, the selection will always
refer to last year no matter
when the selection is run.
Advanced Selections
Not Using the NOT option can actually be quite complex. In its simplest form it means exclude a category
or set of categories, especially if the selection is at the same level as the variable.
For example:
Here, females will be excluded from the selection in the same way as if the Exclude option was used.
Both of these selections return the same number of people.
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Levels
The issues arise when the selection is at a different level to the selection; for example the selection
is at a Person level and the Variable (Gift Type) is at a Gift level.
In this example, there are two variables in the selection at Person level:
Types of Giving (Person Table) of Single or Recurring Gift
Gift Type (Gift Table) of Single Gift.
The fact that the Gift Type is a
different level is indicated by the ANY
icon next to the variable.
We can now apply a NOT Gift Type of Single in the selection, this has the different forms:
NOT ANY
ANY NOT
NOT ANY NOT
We will look at each of these separately
NOT ANY This logic will exclude
all Single gifts from
the selection.
This can be seen in a Cube of Gift Type in that only
people with Recurring Gifts (and no Single Gifts)
are shown.
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ANY NOT This type is more
complex: using ANY
NOT is different from
the above as it does
not necessarily
exclude all Single Gifts.
This can be seen by looking at the results in the cube.
Here both Recurring and Single gifts can be seen and
so ANY NOT is not excluding all Single Gifts.
What ANY NOT is doing is to exclude people with Single Gifts UNLESS they have some other form of
Giving.
NOT ANY NOT This is the final form
NOT ANY NOT. This
actually works as a
double negative and
actually means
include!
The result is that only people who give Single Gifts and
nothing else have been included.
In the examples Gift Type only has two categories and so the additional complexity of using the
above conjunctions is not really warranted. This type of logic comes into its own when there are
multiple categories to select from
In this selection we
are selecting Active
Single Givers who
have only donated by
SMS.
There are actually over 10 categories of Payment
Method. Here we can see that only SMS payments are
being returned.
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NOT Summary To summarise:
Condition Effect NOT Exclude NOT ANY Exclude ANY NOT Include only if belong to another category NOT ANY NOT Include if this is the only category
Tight and Loose The tightness or looseness of a selection can alter the number and types of people selected. In both
of these examples, people who have made Single Gifts and have Payment Method of Credit Card are
being selected.
Here we have a selection of Gift
Type Single and Payment
Method Credit Card. It can be
seen that there are fewer than
9000 people selected.
Here we have a selection of Gift
Type Single and Payment
Method Credit Card. It can be
seen that there are over 9000
people selected.
The difference between the two selections is the tightness of the relationship. In the first selection
we are selecting people who have made Single Gift donations by Credit Card.
In the second example, there are people who have made Single Gifts and people who have donated
by Credit Card. This is a much looser set of logic as it is possible that people have made a Single Gift
by some other Payment Method or a Regular Gift by Credit Card.
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RFV Selections In addition to selecting people by a set of true and false statement, selections can be made using a
combination of values using RFV functionality.
The selection that we are going to use as a base is People who have given a single gift, as shown
below:
To use a RFV selection, the
variable must be at a Gift level
and the selection at a Person
level.
Right click the ANY icon and the selection menu will appear.
Select the Apply RFV to Person option and a new dialog box
will be shown.
The RFV selection allows people to be
selected by up to three factors:
Recency
Frequency
Value
It should be noted that when RFV is being
used, the actual criteria does not appear in
the selection and the analyst will need to go
back into the RFV functionality using the
Modify RFV command.
Modifying the RFV
To change the factors in an RFV, right click the RFV and select
Modify RFV.
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Frequency The RFV calculation looks at the number of transactions and so can give the number of occurrences
or the order that they came. Open the RFV dialog box and then check the Frequency Option. Then
add the required conditions in the same way as selecting numeric variables.
For example, using the
base selection, we
could select all people
where they had given
more than 2 single gift
donations:
Without this functionality a new virtual variable or expression would be needed to be created to
select people more than 2 single gifts.
The appearance of the selection
has now changed and a new icon
has appeared and has replaced the
ANY icon.
As mentioned earlier, it should be
noted that the actual selection is
not shown – just the RFV icon.
Value In addition to putting parameters around frequency, a set of value criteria can be set up. To activate
this function, click the Value check box and then select the required function using the drop down
menu.
Finally, drag and drop the variable from the gift table onto the dialog box where it says, “Drop your
value variable here”. Here we are using Gift Payment Amount.
It should be noted that it is not possible to drag a numeric variable onto
here that is held at the Person level.
For example, if an average value of greater than 200 is selected, all people who have and average
value over €200 will included.
Combine this with the Frequency criterion above and all people who have given 3 plus single gifts
with an average of over €200.
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Recency This is more complex than the previous two types of RFV items, Frequency and Value, and is usually
used in conjunction with the Value criteria.
To use the Recency criterion, make sure that the Recency Option is checked and drag and drop an
order variable onto the dialog box. It should be noted that only dates at the Gift level can be used.
In addition to being able to select an order type variable, here the Gift Payment Date, it is possible to
select the specific position in the order.
Recency Date Criteria
Here is summary some of the different Recency combinations.
First 1 – The First Transaction
First 2 – The Second Transaction
First n – The nth Transaction
Last 2 – The Last but one Transaction
Last 1 – The Latest Transaction
Not Just Dates
The Recency statistic is a slight misnomer as any order variable can be used. In the example below,
Gift Payment Amount is being used as the order variable.
Here the data is
ordered by the
payment amount and
people who have a
minimum gift value of
€200 are being
selected.
Last 1, would return
people who have a
maximum gift value of
€200.
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ANY
The recency function of ANY does not use an order variabl; it takes the information from the Value
variable. In the example below the criteria ANY 3 is being used in conjunction with the Value 200.
This means that a person must have at least 3 Gift Transactions of €200.
Combining Not and RFV Consider the following selection:
Only given 3 plus single gifts with a total value of €500 plus.
If we use and RFV to try and do this:
We get this selection and looking at the
results in a cube we get:
As can be seen, some of the supporters have given Recurring Gifts as well as people who have only
given Single Gifts.
If we try and apply the NOT ANY NOT
condition to the RFV, this also affects
the RFV conditions and so we can
end up with people who have fewer
than 3 Single Gifts and are actually
only regular givers
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This means using NOT with an RFV selection can make the results more difficult to understand. The
solution is to not put a NOT qualifier to RFV, but to add a new condition based on Gift Type.
Here we have the RFV selection
as before, but now using a NOT
ANY NOT condition to the Gift
Type of Single.
This means that only Single Gifts
are being selected and the
person must have 3 plus Single
Gifts with a value of €500 plus.
Looking at the cube we can see only Single Gifts:
If we look at the individual donations
using a grid (not available in this
FastStats system) we can see that they
are all Single gifts and the sum of the
value is €500 plus.
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Parameterised Selections It is possible to set up selections so that they prompt the user before use: this can consist of a single
variable or multiple variables in the selection.
To set a parameter, right click the variable and select Apply
Parameters and a new dialog box will appear.
Values
The substitution can be set
using values or Variable and
Values; normally Values are
selected.
Click OK and the look of the selection will be altered. Note
there is now a question mark after the variable name.
Next go to the Cover Sheet and select the Substitutions tab.
The behaviour can be set in a number of ways. In this example, the “Always
Clear and Ask” option will be used; with this option, every time that the
selection is run the user will be asked to input the Source Channel(s) required.
Every time that the selection is run a bank selection prompt will appear.
Select the required channels
and then click OK and the
selection will run.
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Values and Variables
If Values and Variables is
selected, when the
selection is run it is possible
to specify another variable
to use.
Changing the Parameters In addition to being able to change the Behaviour in the cover sheet, it
is possible to modify the parameters in the selection. Click Modify
Parameters and the parameter dialog box will be shown.
Drag and drop a new variable here and then select the categories from that variable.
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Analysis
Cubes Cubes are probably one of the most used analysis tools that
FastStats uses. With a cube it is possible to create a table by
selecting row and column variables and fill the table with counts
and other summary statistics. To create a cube, click or drag and
drop the Cube tool onto the workspace.
The Anatomy of a Cube
Creating a Basic Cube To create a basic cube, drag and drop a selector type variable as a row where it says “Drop your
variable here”. The variable will create an empty cube as it will need to be refreshed before the
cells are populated.
Slider
Cube Results
Column Variables
Row
Variables
Toolbar
Level Title
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Adding a Second Dimension
In the previous section we created a one dimensional cube. We can now add a second by dragging
and dropping a variable as a column; drop it where the cube says “Drop your variable here”. And
then refresh the cube. Each time a variable is added a new “Drop your variable here” area is added.
This is the new cube:
Transposing and Moving Variables
The above table has Gender as a row and Active Status as the
column. It is possible to change this around by moving Gender on
top of Active Status (or vici versa).
The new
cube
Modifying the Categories Seen In the above table there are four categories of Gender,
including Unclassified and Unknown. The analyst may
want to remove these from the cube. Click on the arrow
on the right hand side of Gender and a dialog box will
appear that allows selected categories to be hidden.
Uncheck any categories that are to be hidden.
The new cube is shown here; note
that the Total column has taken
account of the reduced columns.
Statistics such as means can cause
issues and these are discussed in the
Adding Statistics section.
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Adding Additional Variables
So far a cube has been created with a single variable on each axis. Additional variables can be added
as rows and columns in the same way.
Note that there is no column Total as the categories for Gender and Types of Giving have been
hidden. To see the total, use a selection to remove the categories rather than hiding them.
Modifying variables
It is possible to modify a variable by adding a filter or removing
cells where there are too few people. Right click the variable and
a new menu will be seen.
Minimum Category Count
In the table below there are just over 5000 people with
an Unknown Gender, this is far smaller than the other
categories. We are going to use the Minimum Category
Count Editor to remove this.
Base Cube
Edited cube with
Unknown removed.
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Adding a Dimension Filter
It is also possible to add a filter to Gender. Right click Gender and select Add Dimension Filter. Here
we are only going to look at a specific Charity.
This produces a new cube:
Note that there is a suffix with the filter name on the Gender
variable. This is one reason that it is a good idea to give
selections a sensible name when creating them.
Changing the Level It is possible to change the level of the cube in a similar manner as a
selection. To change the level, right click the level and select the
required one.
It should be seen that when changed to a Gift level a new option is
unveiled, making It is possible to add a selection at Gift level here.
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This selection is now going to be used to filter the
cube.
Now the cube is showing the
number of Single Gifts for each of
the Gender categories.
It is possible to apply a parameter
to this selection so that the user is
prompted for a Gift Type each time
the cube is run.
Adding Numeric Variables and Dates as Categories To add these types of variable to a cube, right-drag and drop the variable onto the cube in the same
way as for the Selector type variables. It should be noted if they are dragged and dropped onto the
cube itself they will be added as an additional statistic rather than a row or column variable.
Date Options
Numeric Variable Options
The numeric ranges are defined in a similar way as for selecting numeric
variables.
A Cube with the Year of Gift Payment Date as a column.
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Making Selections from the Cube If a cell is clicked or a set of cells clicked, a continuous group or a set of separate cells by clicking
each cell whilst holding the CTRL key. The cells change colour and can then be dragged off the cube,
onto the workspace, to create a selection.
This code shows the dragged
off selection for the first
example.
Thematic Shading In the previous cube, it can be seen that the cells containing the most people have the strongest
shading and those with the fewest have the lightest shading. The shading is based on a quantile
(decile) break down of the data, which is 10% of the data in each decile.
It is possible to change the
colours used as well as the
type of range and the
number of bands used. Click
the Thematic icon in the
toolbar and a new dialog
box will be shown.
It is also possible to change the colour of the shading, but this can also
be filed under the title – “Just because you can doesn’t mean that you
should”. To change the colour click on the menu and scroll through the
many and varied colours that can be selected. In this example, the
colour goes from Lime Green to Fuchsia.
The colours can also be changed by clicking on the coloured squares on either side of the slider at
the bottom of the cube. It should be noted that this change in colour does not necessarily persist
and any new cubes will show the default colours.
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Selecting People Using Ranges
It is possible to select cells within a cube using the slider at the bottom. Click on the diamond shape
and the slide can be used.
The slider is actually made up of two sections; the right section sets the upper limit and the left
section the lower limit.
Here the top two deciles are being selected (cells shown in green).
These cells can then be dragged and dropped onto the workspace to create a selection.
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Adding Statistics It is possible to add additional statistics to cubes, trees and Venn diagrams, other than the counts
based on the resolve level of the analysis. The process is similar for cubes, trees and Venns and we
will concentrate on cubes for example purposes.
To add additional statistics, select the statistics tool on the tool bar as shown below.
Depending on the screen resolution, it is possible that the word statistics will be hidden and only the
sigma (Σ) will be seen.
The Statistics Menu Click the Statistics (Σ) icon and a new dialog box will be shown.
Any statistics created will be shown here,
they can be displayed or hidden, edited or
deleted.
It is also possible to alter which variable is
used for creating the thematic shading in
the cubes and trees. The Primary check
box controls this option.
To add a new statistic, click the Add
Statistic button at the bottom of the
dialog box.
In this example, the default resolve level statistic and another are being shown.
The percentage value is being used as the primary statistic and will control the thematic shading and
which cells will be selected when using the thematic slider.
Cube
Tree
Venn
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Statistics Options There are three different types of statistics that can be added to the analysis: these are shown in the
diagram below.
Resolve Table
The resolve table is the level that the cube/tree is being created at. In this system there are two
possible resolve levels:
Person
Gift
It should be noted that the resolve level is controlled by the cube/tree and not the level of the
selection. The selection could be at a Gift level and the cube/tree at Person level; the resolve level in
this case would be Person.
This type of statistic uses information currently held in the cube and will be added automatically and
the cube/tree does not need to be refreshed to update it.
Other Variables etc.
Information held in other tables, variables, selections and expressions can be added to the output.
We will look at expressions later in this document and concentrate on the other types of input. We
will look in detail at adding another variable and each of the results for each of the other types
seperately.
It should be noted that the cube/tree will need to be refreshed before the results will be added.
Calculated Measure
In a similar fashion as the Resolve statistic, calculated measure uses information currently held in the
cube/tree and so is updated automatically. This type of statistic manipulates one or two variables
that are present in the table and so can create values such as cumulative totals.
Base Selection and Table As an example for adding statistics, we will have a look at the number of people and value of gifts
given by year. To do this we will create the following base selection:
Note that this is at a Person level.
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We will also create a basic cube using Gift Payment Date from the Gift Table. Drag and drop a cube
onto the above selection and then right drag and drop the Gift Payment Date onto the cube and
select Years as the banding.
Adding a Resolve Statistic
Select the Statistics tool and click the Add Statistics button.
Make sure that the Use Resolve Table option is selected
Decide on the type of Statistic to use:
We are going to use a column percentage to add to the number
of people who gave each year.
And then Click OK.
The column percentage values
will now be added to the cube.
In this example 43.5% of people
gave in 2012.
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Other Variable As mentioned, it is possible to add information from another variable to the output: we will look this
in detail and then give some examples of the other types later in this document.
These are the steps to use this functionality:
1. Use the second option; specify Other Variable. It should be noted if this is not selected it will
not be possible to drag and drop the variable into the dialog box.
2. In this example we are going to use Gift Payment Amount (From the Gift Table); drag and
drop this on to the dialog box as shown below.
Next select the type of statistic that is going to be used. Here we are going to select Sum.
We could also modify the statistic in the same manner as seen for the Resolve level by selecting the
Value option and selection from a separate menu.
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Finally, Click the OK button and an
empty column will be created.
To populate this, refresh the cube.
Adding a Filter At present the total income value is being used; if the value of Regular gifts were required instead,
this could be added by applying a selection or filter to the statistics.
Create the statistic as before:
Drag and drop the selection
onto the dialog box as shown
and then click OK.
The new variable, Total Value of
Regular Gifts, will be added.
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Refresh the cube and the information will be updated.
Adding Cosmetic Labels`
In the table above it is difficult to distinguish easily between the total value and the total value of
regular gifts, even stretching out the columns does not make it easy to read.
For this reason it
is possible to
change the
column headers
so that they
make more sense
to the user.
Go to the
Statistics menu
and click the Edit button for the statistic that you want to re-label.
Select the use Custom Statistics Name and then add a sensible label.
Finally click OK
and the cube will
be updated;
there is no need
for a refresh.
In this example, both of the value columns have been given custom labels.
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Selections
A selection returns a true or false (1/0) result and so if a selection is used it will give a frequency
count of the value in each cell. For example, if the selection is Gender of Female, it will return the
number of females in each group or category.
To use a selection as a statistic, drag and drop the selection onto the dialog box as shown below.
Here the selection Gender of Female has been added as a
statistic.
The cube now shows the number of
females as well as the number of
people by the type of recruitment.
Table
If the resolve level is Person, it is possible to add the Gift level as a statistic by dragging the gift table
on to the dialog box.
Here the gift table has been dragged and dropped onto
the selections options.
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The cube now shows the number of
gift transactions as well as the
number of people.
Calculated Measures The final type of statistic has a more complex interface as there are far more types of interactions
that can be investigated. We will look at using one variable to create our statistic and then two
different variables.
One Variable
In this example, we are going to look at manipulating a single variable to get a cumulative total
income statistic. First, select Calculated Measures.
The next step is to select the type of calculated measure; here we are
going to select Running to get a cumulative value.
This drastically changes the look of the dialog box.
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If there were more than one row variable we could change the running across option, but this is not
necessary in this
case.
We are going base
the measure on the
Total RG Gift Value.
Note that the
custom labels
created earlier are
being used.
We will give the new statistic a name; if no name was specified the statistic would be given the type
name, in this case Running.
Finally we select the function to be used, in this case Sum.
Click OK and the cube will be updated.
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Using Two Variables
In this example, we are going to look at the proportion of income coming from regular gifts in any
year.
First specify Calculated Measure and use the options in the diagram below.
The cube now shows the additional column with the proportion of income.
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Adding a Legend When only a row variable is used the variable names appear at the top of the columns. If another
variable is used as a column variable the labels are not displayed by default. In the example below,
Gender has been added as a column and the statistic labels have now been hidden (only Male and
Female are being shown for clarity purposes).
To show the labels, click the legend tool
and they will reappear.
Grouping Statistics By default the statistics are grouped by the column variable, in the above example by Gender.
It is possible to group by the statistics themselves
by using the Sigma (Σ) tool (this is different from
the statistics tool in the toolbar).
Move this tool to the other side of Gender and the
table will be grouped by the statistics instead.
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Missing Statistics? As seen earlier, it is possible to restrict the categories that are shown in the rows and columns.
If we had restricted the available
categories in the cube, this would
also affect the output.
In this case the unclassified year
group (although actually empty)
has been removed from the cube.
It can be seen that the percentage values are no longer displayed.
If there are missing statistics, the first course of action is to check the rows and columns to see if any
categories have been excluded.
It should be noted that some statistics may be
shown and other not.
If you want to exclude any categories, always
do so as part of the selection if any statistics are
not displayed.
Here Males and Females
are going to be displayed
by default and so would
have no effect on the
statistics displayed.
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Changing the Primary Statistic The Primary Statistic controls which set of cells is used to shade the cube. The primary statistic is
selected in the first statistics menu.
Here the primary statistic is set using the Person values. To change the primary statistic, open the
statistics menu from the toolbar and select a new one. Here the Total Gift Value has been selected
as the primary statistic.
When changing the primary statistic it is not
necessary to rebuild the cube as this change is
applied automatically. Now if the cells are
selected and dragged onto the workspace, the
selection created will be based on that statistic.
Cycling Through Statistics When adding the statistics, we selected the specific one that we were interested in. It is
possible to change this value by cycling through the primary statistic using the toolbar.
This allows us to cycle backwards and forward through all of the available statistics.
In this example we are going to look at Total Gift Value.
As can be seen, when cycling through the statistics, not all are available or valid.
Previous Next
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Cube Size It is possible that you will get a warning about the size of the cube being too big. It is possible to
increase the parameters or display a partial cube (excluding some of the data). This tends to happen
when a vast number of categories have been requested.
Partial Cube
The partial cube can be restricted based on minimum
value of the statistics (here the number of gifts –
enter a minimum group size). Or the partial cube can
be restricted by the number of records based on the
statistics in the tree
Exporting the Cube To export the cube to Excel, select the Excel tool and the type of
export required. If a Thematic cube is selected, the cube with all of
the thematic shading will be exported; otherwise just the data will
be exported.
The cube is exported and given the tab name Cube. If another cube is
exported it will also be give the name tab, but this time with a suffix
(2): each additional cube is named using this convention.
This is one of the reasons that sensible
names are given to each cubes as there is
an index created that allows the user to
jump to each cube, tree etc.
Excel with more sensible labels added. Excel with no labels added.
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Trees Trees are similar to Cubes in that the number of people and gifts can be seen as grouped counts, or
additional statistics can be added. The main difference is that the Tree only allows variables to be
dropped across the top (Drop your variable here).
Adding Variables To add a variable drag and drop it on “Drop your variable here”.
Here Gift Type has been added to the Tree and the number of gifts in the last 5 years (base selection)
is shown.
Another variable is now added by right-dragging and dropping the Gift Payment Date onto the top
bar.
Select Years and the number of gifts by type and year will be displayed.
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Changing the order of the variables
To exchange the order of the variables, drag the Gift Type and drop it on the other side of the Gift
Date or drop the Gift Type onto the Gift Date to transpose the two.
Sorting the Categories
To sort the categories, click the variable column.
Flattened and Collapsible Views
There are two main ways of looking at the data: these
are flattened and collapsible trees.
Collapsible Tree
A collapsible tree
groups all of the
categories
together.
These categories
can be opened up
to see lower level
values in a similar
manner as a
computer folder
structure.
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Flattened Tree
A flattened tree is the default view and here all of the groups are shown in full for all levels of
the tree.
Adding Statistics
Additional statistics can be
added as shown in the
Adding Statistics section.
Here Gift Value is being
added.
It is possible to show the statistics, side by side (column view) and stacked (row view). The table
above shows the side by side view and the one below the stacked view.
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These views are selected from the toolbar.
Exporting the Tree
The data in the tree can be exported to Excel in a number of formats; it
should be noted that the tree is exported as seen and so if a tree is
exported as a Thematic Tree whilst in the collapsible view only part of the
data may be exported.
Only the parts of the
tree that have been
opened up will show all of
the data. In this case it is
not possible to drill down
into 2013 or other
subsequent years by Gift
Type.
As mentioned before –
always give the output a
sensible name.
Outputting the data as a pivot table or pivot source does not create this issue.
Stacked view Omit Zero Axes
Side by Side view Include records with
no transactions
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Table Size There may be a warning about the size of the table being too big. It is possible to increase the
parameters or display a partial tree (excluding some of the data). This tends to happen when a vast
number of categories have been requested.
Partial Tree
The partial tree can be restricted based on
minimum value of the statistics (here the
number of gifts – enter a minimum group
size). Or the partial tree can be restricted
by the number of records based on the
statistics in the tree
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Visualisation
Venn Diagrams Venn diagrams are extremely useful as they are simple to use and very visual. Up to 5 selections (and
another underlying selection) can be used with a Venn. The Venn is built up by dragging and
dropping selections onto the Venn dialog box. In this example, we are going to use selections at the
person level built from the Gift Type in the Gift table; they look at whether a person has given a
single gift in any particular year.
They are all similar to this:
They have a Gift Type of Single and a
transaction in a particular year.
A base selection of given in the last 5
years is also been applied.
To use the Venn, drag and drop
and drop it onto the workspace.
The Basic Venn
Adding Segments/Selections Now drag and drop a
selection onto the Venn. We
are using the selection
discussed at the start of this
section (a base selection of
gift in the last 5 years has also
been applied) and then
refresh the Venn.
We are going to build the
Venn up, one selection at a
time, but it is possible to add
several selections before
refreshing the Venn .
We can see that there are 20099 people with a single gift in 2012 and 68,506 who have not.
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A second selection can now be added. The two selections can now be seen and also the intersection
between them; there are 7,499 people who gave in both years.
A new selection, Single Gift in 2014 has new been added and a 3-by Venn has been created; there
are 4,272 people who have given in each of the three years.
Creating Selections from the Venn
Any of the segments can be dragged off the Venn and a selection created; to do so, click on the
segment and then drag and drop it off onto the workspace. If the segment has been correctly
selected it will look like it has been shaded, the difference is slight – but can be seen.
Unselected Selected
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This is the selection created from the intersection of the three circles.
The segments can also be selected using the colour bar at the side of the Venn, but this can be
difficult is small segments are being used.
Multiple segments can be selected at the same time by clicking on a segment whilst holding the
CTRL down. These can now be dragged and dropped onto the workspace.
Using the Venn
Exporting a Venn
The Venn diagram can be exported using the copy to Word/Excel/PowerPoint tools. The Venn is
exported as an image.
Tool-Tips
If the mouse is moved across the Venn a tool-tip will
appear for each segment. It shows which group is
included and which excluded (as shown in the diagram).
Hiding and Removing Selections
There is a menu connected with each group; this is accessed by
clicking the down arrow on the right side of the label. This allows the
user to delete, hide or edit the selection or label.
If a selection is hidden it is temporarily removed from the Venn but
can be added back at any point. If removed, the selection cannot be
accessed in the future without re-applying it.
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Venn with hidden selection.
To reapply the selection, click on the label.
Changing Colours
In addition to the standard colours where each segment has its own colour, the segments can be
shaded thematically (that is based on the population or value in each segment). To access the colour
panel, click the arrow at the top of the colour bar.
It is possible to change the order
of the colours and also add
thematic shading. The available
colours are shown to the right.
Any Hidden Selections
appear here.
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Adding More Selections
As mentioned earlier it is possible to add more than the three selections to the Venn; sometimes this
should be covered by “Just because you can – doesn’t mean that you should!”.
4by Venn
5by Venn
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One idea is to add all of the selections and the hide those that are not needed.
Here 2015 and 2016 have been hidden.
Adding Statistics
It is possible to add statistics to the Venn in a similar manner as adding statistics to a Cube or a Tree;
to add additional statistics, click the Statistics (Σ) tool on the toolbar.
Adding information from another variable, table, expression or selection is covered in more detail in
the Adding Statistics section. We will look at the additional functions that use the Resolve Table.
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Resolve Table
It is possible to add
percentages to the Venn as
well as the populations.
Select the Percentage option
and the type of calculation
can be selected.
The first option creates
percentages based on the
whole population (base
selection) and included people
who are not in the Venn
segments (in this case people
who have not given a single
gift between 2012 and 2014).
The second option calculates percentage value for people in the Venn and does not include those
people who are not.
The final option allows the percentages to be calculated by comparing the segments against one of
the selections.
Here, the percentages are calculated based on the people each segment and excludes any person
outside of the segments.
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Other Statistics
Another statistic is now being added, this gives the means Single Gift Value for each segment.
Here the Percentage of the Base and mean Single Gift Value statistics have been added to the Venn.
Adding a Legend
Unfortunately, it is difficult to understand what the values mean. A legend can be added to give
titles for each statistic. Click the legend tool.
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Word Clouds Word clouds are used to create a graphical view of a frequency count. To use a word
cloud, drag and drop it onto the workspace. Select a variable and drag and drop it
onto the word cloud variable list.
Here Gift Source Channel is being used.
With a word cloud, the bigger the font size the greater the
frequency. Here, the same information is being displayed in a cube
and a bar chart for comparison.
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Publish
Charts and Graphs The graphing and charting engine in FastStats has been much improved and gives
an alternative to exporting data to Excel and building charts there. To produce a
chart, click the Chart icon in the tool bar. In addition of opening a chart dialog box,
a new toolbar will be created.
Chart toolbar
The Anatomy of a Chart The chart dialog box or window can be broken into a number of separate areas; these are shown in
the diagram below.
When trying to understand the interface and what charts and options are offered, it is a good idea to
have a play with the toolbars and chart types.
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Producing a Chart To create a chart, drag and drop a variable onto the Category/Dimension Axis. Here the variable
Charity has been dragged onto the Category Axis and a bar chart created.
Modifying the chart
Using the Chart toolbar it is possible to add
information to the chart without having to rebuild it.
By default, unclassified records are excluded from the
chart; this can be changed clicking the Omit
unclassified tool icon.
It should be noted that only one type of labels can be applied at a time.
Removing a Variable
To remove a variable, click the label and select Remove.
3 Value % Percentage
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Changing the level
It is possible to display the chart at either Person or Gift level, although this
does need the chart to be rebuilt
The two charts show the Number of people and gifts by Charity.
Adding a Base Selection
To add a new selection, click the New filter button and enter the selection as usual. It should be
noted that the selection can only be created at the same level as the chart.
The Chart will now be built using the base selection.
Changing the Chart Type It is possible to change the type of the chart,
without the need to rebuild, by clicking the
respective type chart type on the Chart
Toolbar.
Here the bar chart has been converted into a pie chart.
The chart can be changed into any of the types in the
toolbar.
Person Gift
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Adding Another Category To add a second or subsequent variable drag the variable onto the Category/Dimension Axis.
1st Gift Type has been added to
the chart and both variables are
shown on the same type; the
legend colour is based on the
second variable. The choice is
shown in the toolbar that is
shown when more than one
variable is being used.
Changing the Variable Order
To change the order of the
variables, just drag them
around and place them as
required.
It should be noted that the
chart does not need to be
refreshed: it is updated
automatically.
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Other Types of View
When a variable with a large number of categories is added it is not possible to show all of the bars
and so the Chart tends to be created with a Paged View. The Paged, Trellis and Windowed views can
be seen on all of the chart types.
Paged View
Here, individual bar charts for each category in the second variable can be selected. There are other
ways in which to show charts with a large number of categories.
Trellis View
One of these is the Trellis View where there is a scroll bar at the bottom of the chart.
Clustered (Windowed)
Where there are a lot of categories and a clustered view is requested, a windowed view is created so
that the user can scroll through the chart using window panes.
The panes can be scrolled
left or right and even
elongated to encompass
the whole Chart.
Scroll bar
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Adding Measures and Statistics So far all of the charts created have only used variables and data on the Category/Dimension Axis.
Changing the Value Shown
Click the arrow at the top of the variable name and then select change to alter the statistic being
used.
The Chart is now automatically updated to show
percentage values rather than counts.
Variables & Other Statistics
In addition to changing the type of value, it is possible to add additional statistics to the chart by
dragging and dropping a variable onto the Statistic/Measure axis. This can either replace the current
variable being used or add an additional measure.
Here a second variable has been added
and it appears on the right hand measure
access.
Having two measures being displayed at
the same time can make the chart difficult
to understand and so we will concentrate
on one.
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Changing the Statistic
In the same way that the Person metric can be altered, so can the
added statistic.
Click the arrow at the top of the variable name and a number of
functions can be selected. Unlike changing the form of the value,
seen earlier, the chart will need to be rebuilt when a new statistic is
used.
Chart Storyboard
Whenever a chart is created a copy is retained in the chart storyboard area on the
right hand side of the dialog box. Mousing over any of these charts will give a
preview of the chat and if the chart is clicked it will replace the current one. The
charts can be dragged and dropped from here onto the main Storyboard.
In this way a series of charts can be shown built and then shown in succession to
build up a story using the charts.
Saving and Exporting the Chart The chart can be saved as a whole to disk by selecting the Save tool in the toolbar. Alternatively the
chart can be exported to Microsoft Office or in an image format by selecting the Export option from
the toolbar.
The type of format, the positioning of
the legend and the size of the export
can all be selected here.
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These are the options for exporting the chart.
Finally, click the Export button.
Templates & Objects As mentioned earlier, it is possible to save any of the objects created in FastStats. There are two
main ways of doing this. The first is to drag and drop to file (or click Save on the object toolbar). The
second is to save the object as a template.
A basic cube is created to produce a frequency count of supporters who are contactable by email.
The cube and selection.
This can be saved to disk or dragged and dropped onto the Template ribbon.
The objects saved as
templates are grouped by
type. It should be noted
that only the user that
created the template can
access it, unlike saving it to
a public folder.
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Comparing Templates and Objects
If the Template is retrieved and then re-run the following will be seen:
If the same cube is loaded from disk and re-run then the following is seen:
As can be seen they both return a different number of people.
This is because when an object is saved as a Template it tends to lose any base selection; the idea is
that a report or view is being created that will have different selections applied to it.
Retaining the Selection in a Template
To include the selection in a template, drag and drop the
cube (or other object) as a workbook rather than the cube
itself. This is done from the Cover Sheet.
This will be displayed slightly differently using a different icon.
Workbook Cube
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The Storyboard The Storyboard option allows the user to create a sequence of objects (Cubes, Venns etc.) such that
they can be shown in a particular order. The objects are dropped onto the Storyboard toolbar in the
required sequence. Any items can be removed by right clicking and selecting Delete. If necessary the
objects can be rebuilt all together or individually (right click and select Rebuild).
Adding Items Here a Venn has been created and all the multiple response segments have been dragged off to for a
selection. A cube has been added to the selection to see how many people in each charity have been
selected and then a percentage value added. Finally, a bar chart has been added which looks at the
distribution by charity (this was dragged and dropped from the Chart Storyboard section). All of
these have been dragged and dropped onto the storyboard ribbon, as shown below.
This can now be saved, viewed or exported.
Annotating the Story Click preview and the user can access all of the objects in the ribbon.
Here each of the objects can be examined in turn and notes added to each
page.
This can then be sent to a Word or PDF document.
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Expressions One very powerful aspect of FastStats is the expression engine. This allows the analyst to
create user-defined expressions or calculations. Drag and drop the Expression tool onto
the workspace and the Expression dialog box will appear.
The Expression syntax is very similar to that of Excel and anyone who has use Excel formulae should
not have great difficulty using the Expression engine.
Logical Example We are going to build a basic expression using IF. First select Logical Functions and then IF.
The description area now shows what is required for the equation. Click Insert and the equation will
be pasted to the build area.
The syntax checker now says that a logical expression is needed.
Expression Build Area
Expression
Description Area
Tool Bar
Group Sub Group
Syntax Checker
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Drag and drop Maximum value of Single Gifts into the build area and the syntax checker now states
that a comma (,) is required.
Complete the logical construct and
then add a comma.
Now continue to build the expression.
The syntax checker says that the
expression is valid.
If a person has made a single gift donation of over 1000 than they are being classified as high value
and given a value and otherwise zero.
Expression Toolbar
We can let FastStats decide on the type of variable being created (auto) or it can be selected by the
analyst.
The types of variable available are shown in the drop down
menu if Auto is unchecked. In this case, the Auto type is fine
and will be used.
Next refresh the equation and a preview of
the results will be shown. It can be seen
that if there is no Single Gift Value the
Expression returns 0; the same happens if
the Single Gift Value is less than 1000. If the
Single Gift Value is greater than 1000 then
the expression returns a 1.
Using the Expression
The expression can now be added to a Cube, Tree or Venn and used to calculate a statistic.
Here the sum has been
used and then a “Between
cell calculation” to get a
proportion as a Calculated
Measure.
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Equation Using Selections When looking at the Venn we used 5 selections that described Single Givers in any particular year.
We could use these selections to create an expression to calculate the number of years that a person
has given a single gift.
Any selection has two possible outcomes True (1) or False (0), we can use this fact to create a sum of
the selections by simply adding up the values.
Drag each of the selections on in turn and add them together.
It can be seen that the first person did not give a single gift in any of the years, the second person
gave in 4 of the years and the fourth only gave in two of the years.
Right drag and drop the equation as a variable onto a
cube and select Simple Banding and then define the
banding from 0 to 5.
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The cube now shows the number of years in
which a person has given a single gift (the base
selection was that they must have given at
least one single gift).
A percentage Statistic has also been added.
If the top two cells are dragged off, the
following selection will be created. This refers
to the equation built earlier and remains valid even when the expression is closed.
Date Example It is possible to use date arithmetic within the equations to look at specific ranges. For this example
we are going to produce the supporter lifetime by calculating the time between the first donation
and the last donation.
Select a Date Function Group and the Datediff Sub Group.
The equation requires two dates and a set of units, in this case months is being selected. It should be
noted that Year 0 can mean that the first and last dates are in the same Year.
We are going to use two functions here, one to find the time between two dates and the other to
create a reference date.
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This gives the Equation:
If this is added to a cube the distribution can be seen.
This means that 633 supporters gave their first gift
(of the 5 years used) in 2016 and 38,571 in 2012.
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Appendix 1: Other Training Materials
Training Videos In addition to this manual, Adroit have created of set of videos to use in conjunction with the
material found here; they can also be seen as a way for a user to get into the FastStats system
quickly.
There are two main types of video, these are:
How to videos
Informational Videos
How to Videos
These training videos use FastStats being used to complete a function using in app recording and
voice overs. These are easy to follow guides to show a user how to get into the FastStats system and
quickly get up to speed and use key functions.
These include:
Creating Selections
Creating Basic Cubes, Trees and Venns
Informational Videos
These are more detailed than the How to Videos and are used to highlight important parts of the
FastStats system. These use PowerPoint to show information with a voice over to amplify the
information.
These Include:
The FastStats User Interface
FastStats Variables
Adding Statistics to Cubes, Trees and Venns
The IFL FastStats Training System This is a virtual mirror of the main FastStats system that has been statistically modelled to keep the
underlying relationships valid, but making it difficult to identify the actual information used.
The system is based on three hypothetical Charities in two countries:
Charity Country Children Without Families Germany People in Need France Save the World
This system has been used to create this manual and all of the training videos. It may also be used as
a test bed to examine changes to the main IFL FastStats system.
Other Sources of Information Apteco, who wrote the FastStats software, have a library of training materials and manuals; these
also cover functions in FastStats that have not been enabled in the IFL FastStats system.
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Notes:
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