In DataTile, you can easily categorize date variables like "Completion Date", "Date of Birth", and others by breaking them into time series and creating sequential or custom time intervals on the fly.
How to create intervals
Click on the date variable to open the secondary panel, which may be empty or display previously created breaks.
To create new intervals, click on the input field at the top of the panel above the categories.
A hint displaying common expressions will appear. You can either type an expression or choose and edit any suggested in the hint.
Press Enter to apply the expression and generate the specified intervals. Remember that you can edit each interval's label by double-clicking on the created segment individually.
Once intervals are created, you can operate with them just like you would with regular categories.
You can create any number of intervals without restrictions, allowing any duplication or overlapping that might be needed.
To remove existing intervals
Select the intervals
Click the
Xicon next to them or press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Note! Deleting intervals from the list will not impact existing reports.
Keep in mind that the creation or deletion of intervals does not affect other users or alter the variable. These intervals are exclusive to your account within this specific database and will not interfere with other users or databases.
To create permanent segments for all database users, consider creating a logical variable in Meta-Editor.
Syntax of Segmenting Expression
All the expressions described in this section are case insensitive.
Supported date formats
Supported date formats
YYYY/mm/dd
YYYY-mm-dd
YYYY.mm.dd
or the same in the reverse order
dd/mm/YYYY
dd-mm-YYYY
dd.mm.YYYY
Remember that you can simplify the above notations as needed. For example, 2022/01/01, 2022/01, and 2022 are all valid definitions for the same date, but they represent different durations – day, month, and year, respectively.
Single Intervals
Date as it is. You can define a single segment by specifying a period by itself.
For example, 2022/02/24, 2022/02, and 2022 all are valid intervals, designating date, month, and a whole year respectively. In this case, the interval will cover all timings starting from 00:00 till 23:59:59.
Interval defined from a date and its length.
A more advanced approach involves specifying a start date and duration, such as "from 2022/02/24 7d", "from 2022/02/24 1m", or "from 2022/02/24 1q" for one week, one month, and one quarter respectively.
If the duration is a single standard period (d, m, q in this example), you can omit the preceding multiplier. For instance, "from 2022/02/24 m" and "from 2022/02/24 q" are equivalent to the month and quarter definitions above.
Series of Subsequent Intervals
The most verbose notation to define an interval is from dated_period by [N]period*P, where
dated_period- is the particular moment in time like it is for single intervalsperioddefines a standard time span which can be d, w, m, q, or y for day, week, month, quarter, or year, respectively (see the table below).[N]is the period multiplier which, together with theperiod, defines the duration of a single interval.*Pis the number of subsequent non-intersecting time intervals to be created.
Used symbol | Interval |
d | Day, 24 hours |
w | Week, 7 days |
m | Month, it’s number of days depends on the calendar |
q | Quarter, 3 months |
y | Year, 12 months |
You can simplify the expression by omitting the "by" keyword and the period multiplier [N] when it equals 1.
Examples of Segmentation Expressions
Example | Explanation |
2022/02/24 | A single day-long segment |
2022/02 | A single month-long segment from 1 to 28 of Feb, 2022 (the actual length in days depends on the calendar). |
2022 | A single year-long segment from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2022 |
from 2022/02/24 7d or | One week-long segment. |
from 2022/02/24 by 5d*12 | 12 subsequent segments by five days, first starts from Feb 24, 2022 |
from 2022/12/31 by 2w*5 | 5 subsequent non-intersecting bi-weekly segments, starting from Dec 31, 2022 |
from 2022/11/10 by w* | Subsequent weekly segments, starting from Nov 10, 2022. |
from 2022/01 by m*5 | 5 subsequent non-intersecting months, starting from Jan, 2022. I.e. {Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May} |