Waterfall counts

Waterfall counts give you the opportunity to see how each element of your selection is contributing to the final count so that you can make informed decisions about which elements to include.

Enable waterfall counts¶

To enable waterfall counts:

1. Click on Tools > Options... > Selection... > Selection view

   

2. Tick the Waterfall Counts box to set the default to be on for this function.

3. Select Discrete or Compound as the default action (see below).

If the Waterfall Counts function is not on by default, click on the Waterfall Counts button on the Selection window icon bar.

The results are shown once the Build button has been clicked.

Discrete waterfall counts¶

Discrete counts list the total number of records available on the database for each individual element of your count. For example, the screenshot below shows a people count with three main elements. The details within each element have been collapsed for now.

Each line shows the total number of people available on the database for that particular part of the selection. The top figure of 6,210 is the net figure once all of the selection elements have been put together and deduplicated. NB: this will always match the final count in the bottom right hand corner.

This next screenshot shows the same count but with each of the elements expanded so that the details can be seen.

The first element shows that there are 67,237 households within the Just a Cluster criteria available on the whole database. There are 106,959 people who live at THE households selected.

The second element shows that there are 108,876 people with certain job titles and 27,040 people within certain income bands available on the whole database. The net number of people with certain occupations OR income bands is 129,870 people.

The final element shows that there are 561,842 holiday bookings to the United States and 1,506,361 package holiday bookings available on the whole database. The net number of United States AND package holiday bookings is 443,938. These bookings net down to 235,335 people identified by the ANY clause.

The discrete waterfall counts feature is useful if you want to see how many potential records are available on your database without any other selections applied. If your final count is too low or too high then you can see which elements of the database might have influenced the result.

Compound waterfall counts¶

Compound Counts show how many records are remaining as each element of the count is applied. The two examples below show selections with only one level, which clearly illustrate how compound waterfall counts display either decreasing or increasing counts depending on whether the AND or OR clauses have been selected.

The screenshot below shows the same collapsed people count used to illustrate the individual waterfall counts on the previous page. This time you can see that the count is getting smaller each time a new element is applied. This selection is more complex than those above as it includes multiple levels, criteria from different tables and numerous clauses.

Each line shows the total number of people available on the database for that particular part of the selection with the selections above also applied. The top figure of 6,210 is the net figure once all of the selection elements have been applied. NB: This will always match the final count in the bottom right hand corner and also the last element of the selection.

This next screenshot shows the same compound count with each of the elements expanded again so that the details can be seen.

The first element shows that there are 67,237 households with a particular Just a Cluster type on the whole database. There are 106,959 people who live at THE households selected. This is the same as the individual count as there is only one criteria in this element.

The second element shows that there are 108,876 people with certain job titles which increases to 129,870 people once the OR clause has been applied with the income criteria.

The final element shows that there are 561,842 holiday bookings to the United States which reduces to 443,938 bookings once the package holiday criteria is applied with the AND clause. These net down to a result of 6,210 people once all of the above selection elements have been applied.

The compound waterfall counts feature is particularly useful if your final count is too low and you want to see if one particular element has caused the count to suddenly drop.