Using the Halo Function Advanced filtering option

The Side Bar Tools menu includes an option to change filtering behaviour by activating the Halo function. This function changes filtering behaviour from the default to a modified form which preserves all records which share a specific value in a specified field in the IN universe, even if the value in the filters is not one of the selected values. 

The Halo function is activated from the Side Bar Tools > Halo function: Also include all records sharing the same value in....  option, by changing the common value field (column) from (None) to one of the fields in the data set. Once the Halo function is activated, a yellow caution triangle appears on top of the Side Bar telling you that filtering behaviour is now in Halo mode.

The Omniscope Halo function is a powerful analytical tool already used extensively with retail point-of-sale (POS) data. The example below is based on this file. The file contains POS data on 223,484 items purchased at a number of convenience store Units/POS positions over a month, in a wide range of categories. Items sharing the same UniqueTransaction number (first column text field) were bought at the same time. 

On the top of the Side Bar, the Halo function has been set to include all records sharing the same value in the Unique Transaction field. This means that filtering for a particular item will carry with it all the items that were bought at the same time. Notice the yellow caution triangle that has appeared on top of the Side Bar.

In this example file, the Halo function is used to select all items which were bought together with a particular promotional item (i.e. they have the same unique transaction number). In the example file, we filter the ProdName column to select the 'meal deal' promotion.  With the Halo function on, filtering on ProdName 'meal deal' returns not only the 'meal deal' transactions, but also all other 'haloed' items that share the same unique transaction numbers.  Use Add to Basket to place all the haloed records in the gold Basket universe, then switch to a Bar View of the Basket, select the actual 'meal deal' items and click Remove from Basket.  Now the Bar View of the gold Basket universe shows only only the 648 non- 'meal deal' items as ordered, stacked bars clearly showing which items were most complimentary with the 'meal deal' promotional item by value and by category for all outlets at all times of the day over the entire month. 

Try downloading the example file and repeating the analysis for specific days of the week, time slots or outlets.

Next: Cycling Options