Grouping attribute values

Grouping attribute values takes the attribute values and puts them into groups, with each group given a unique name.

You can use the groups to replace the current attribute values, or create a new attribute.

You might replace the current attribute values if you want to standardize values that are actually the same value, but with slightly different formatting or spelling across the data set.

For example, Walmart might show up as Wal-Mart, walmart, and Wal*Mart. To fix these inconsistencies, you could create a Walmart group that includes all of these variants.

You might create a new attribute if you want to provide an attribute with a higher level of abstraction.

For example, you might want to group the values of a State attribute into a new Region attribute. You could then create visualizations based on either State or Region.

To group the values for an attribute:

  1. In the Catalog, select a project.
  2. Select Transform.
  3. Locate one of the attributes that you want to group and select the column.
  4. From the transform menu, select Advanced > Group values.
  5. Click + Value Group.

    A new empty group is added to the list, with a default name of "New Value Group 1". Each group name becomes an attribute value.

  6. To rename the group, double-click the group name. Type the new name, then press Enter.
  7. To populate a group, drag values from the value list and drop them on the group name.
  8. Either specify a new attribute name for the group, or apply the new attribute group to the attribute you selected in Step 3.
  9. Either click Preview to see the previewed results of running the transformation, or click Add to Script to save the transformation step to the script.

If you are done making changes to the project data set, you can commit the changes. See Running the transformation script against a project data set.