Version 2021

Creating custom group banding qualifications

Rather than applying multiple qualifications to separate rows or areas of a report, you may want to slice your data in multiple ranges or bands based on metric values. Custom group bands allow you to create these ranges of data and each band appears as a separate row on your report.

Banding slices a list of attribute elements using the values of a metric. For example, you can slice a list of employees (Employee attribute elements) using the values of a Revenue metric. This enables you to create a report that ranks employees by the revenue generated by each employee. Based on their revenue, the report should segregate the employees into the following three groups: Top for the top 10%, Next for the next 40%, and Lowest for the lowest 50%. In this case, the output level is defined at the Employee level. A custom group whose custom group elements are specified in this manner is called a banded custom group.

The engine uses its internal logic to create the bands based on the banding points that you specify.

In the preceding example, you create a custom group Employee Revenue and specify the banding points as 0, 10, 50, and 100. Create a report that uses this custom group. The engine considers 0 as the highest banding point and 100 as the lowest banding point; based on the revenue, it places the highest 10% of employees in the first band and so on.

You can apply different types of banding:

For more information and examples of banding qualifications, see the Custom Groups and Consolidations chapter in the Advanced Reporting Help.

You cannot combine banding qualifications with other types of qualifications (such as attribute qualifications or metric qualifications). You can add the other qualification to the report filter so that it will determine the values of the custom group elements. You can then specify how the custom group interacts with the report filter, as described in Custom group interaction with the report filter.

To create a custom group banding qualification

  1. Open the Custom Group Editor. How?

  2. Double-click in the Custom Group Definition pane. A new custom group element is created, with the default name Custom Group Element. You can rename the custom group element headers.

  3. Double-click Add Qualification in the Custom Group Definition pane. The Custom Group Options pane opens.

  4. Select Add a Custom Group Banding qualification and click OK. The Custom Group Band Qualification dialog box opens.

  5. Select a metric by any one of the following methods:

    • Type the name of the metric in the Metric box and click OK.

    • Click ... (the browse button) to browse for the metric. In the Open dialog box, navigate to the folder that contains the metric, select the metric, and click OK.

    • Drag the metric from the Object Browser into the Metric box.

      Once a metric is selected, options replace the Tip section.

  6. In the Band on box, select Metric Value, Rank, or Percent.

  7. Select a banding type:

    • Band size slices the range of metric values defined by the start at and stop at values into a number of bands, each defined by the parameter step size. For an example, see Banding type: Band size.

      If you select this option, enter the start at, stop at, and step size.

    • Band count defines the number of equal bands into which the range of metric values is sliced. For an example, see Banding type: Band count.

      If you select this option, enter the start at, stop at, and band count (that is, the number of bands).

    • Banding points specify the value where a band is placed, enabling bands of different sizes to be produced. For an example, see Banding type: Banding points.

      If you select this option, for each band, enter the Band Name, and then numbers in From (the number to start the band at) and To (the number to end the band at). To create another band, click Add New Band.

    • Band for each distinct metric value creates a separate band for each value calculated by the metric. For an example, see Banding type: Metric value banding.

      If you select this option, you do not need to enter any additional information.

      For additional examples of the different banding types, see the Custom Groups and Consolidations chapter in the Advanced Reporting Help.

  8. Set the output level, which is the level at which the metric results are calculated. (How?)

  9. If you selected Rank or Percent in the Band on box, you can set the Break-by function. (How?)

  10. Click OK to close the Custom Group Band Qualification pane.

  11. By default, the bands are displayed as Band (1), Band (2), and so on in the report. You can rename the bands. (How?)

  12. Do one of the following:

    • Change the name of the custom group element header (recommended), if you did not do this in step 2. (How?)

    • Return to Creating custom groups to format the custom group element, set the display options, and/or add more custom group elements.

    • Save the custom group. (How?)