Managing Data (2.4)

Making changes to your data following import

Applies only to version 2.4 and prior

Once your data has been imported into Omniscope, use the the Data > Manage fields dialog to configure your data.

• Data Typing - confirm data typing and default column order
• Column re-naming - keep column names as short and meaningful to your users as possible
• Set Options - use the Options submenu for each field to specify the properties of each field, including annotations using Field Notes
• Hide/Delete - you can globally hide columns you don't want users to see, and delete unnecessary or uninformative columns.
• Add new fields - you may wish to add Formula Fields that calculate additional

Suggestion: Remember to click File > Save  before you start the process, and save your IOK file frequently as your configuration work progresses.

Sometimes (e.g. time series), original source data is laid out 'horizontally' (repeated observations in columns) when Omniscope would manage it better 'vertically' (repeated observations in rows). Sometimes data needs to be exported from Omniscope in an orientation different from that used in Omniscope reports. To avoid the time consuming process of changing the orientation of data from horizontal to vertical (row becomes column) or vertical to horizontal (column becomes row), Omniscope has both Data > De-pivot and Re-pivot functions.

Data Typing, Column Order & Re-naming

Omniscope uses four Data Types to help it display the most appropriate filter/query devices and in many other ways. When importing new a new data set, Omniscope inspects all the values in each field (column), and sets an assumed Data Type for each field (column) to be one of five types:

• Text - character strings, and numbers used as codes, like identifying codes.
• Category - limited numbers of unique text words/values, like country names, colours, true/false fields etc.
• Integer numbers - whole numbers with no decimals.
• Decimal numbers - numbers used in calculations and percentages.
• Dates & Times - many different date and time formats occur in source data, most of which are recognised and converted automatically.

Note: Omniscope does not currently support time durations as data values. If you are managing time durations, you must either import start & stop times & dates and let Omniscope calculate durations, or use and display durations as decimal numbers, e.g. 3.5 = 3 hours and 30 minutes

The first step in configuring your own data file is to confirm that Omniscope has correctly typed all the fields (columns) in your data. To do this, display the Main Toolbar: Data > Manage Fields dialog:

The Manage Fields dialog provides an overview of all the fields (columns) in a data set, their current Data Type settings, and allows you to set Data Types, Edit or specify Options for each a field, Hide Fields from all views, and Remove fields (columns) from the file. The drag handle 'hands' at the far right are used to grab and re-order the fields from the default import order, to a more useful 'master' order for report files. Once you have the fields (columns) in the order you want, click on Reset field orders and the new order will become the starting point in each view you configure. You can make persistent changes to the field (column) order view by view, and for each tab, but whenever you return to Data > Manage fields > Reset view field orders, the field (column) order in all views (and optionally all tabs) will be reset.

For more on adding, removing, hiding, renaming and converting field Data Types, see the section on Managing Data

For a more detailed explanation of all the commands and options available in this dialog, see Data > Manage Fields.

Data formatting, layout and transposition issues

Data formatting, layout and transposition issues can arise for various reasons.

Date & time formats not initially recognised by Omniscope can usually be imported automatically by clarifying the format your date and time data is in.

International differences in data formatting may need to be addressed before the data will import correctly

You may also want to use the ability of Omniscope to manage more than one value in a cell (e.g. to capture one-to-many relationships) using tokenized data fields.

Omniscope time series data should be oriented 'vertically' with all the dates/times and values of repeated observations in columns (not rows). You can use the Omniscope Data > De-pivot/Re-pivot functions to transpose (change the orientation) of some or all of your data.

Note: Transposing a data set (exchanging all rows and columns

For more detail on these and other data formatting, layout and orientation issues...see the Managing Data section.