17.3Exploring a series: periods, transformations and statistics

The series explorer lets you inspect, transform, and analyze time series data across customizable intervals without altering the underlying raw data.

Setting granularities and periods

You can customize the timeframe and interval displayed in the explorer:

1. Select the desired granularity for your data, such as month, quarter, or year.
2. Specify the period range you want to display in the view.

The chart updates to reflect the chosen timeframe and time buckets.

Reading the chart

The explorer chart provides visual markers to represent the status of your data points:

• Completed periods are drawn with solid lines.
• A period that is not over yet is drawn dashed.
• An estimated value is indicated by a hollow point.

Applying transformations

Transformations allow you to compute derived series on demand. Transformations are processed as a sequence of steps that apply strictly in the order they are arranged:

• Change versus a year earlier
• Percentage change
• Rolling averages
• Year to date
• Rescaling
• Unit and currency conversion

A transformation is executed only when applied in the explorer view and never alters the stored values in your source data.

Reading the execution summary

Directly beneath the chart, an informational line details the processing execution. This line reports:

• How many values were read from the source data.
• How long the data retrieval and calculations took.
• A summary of what each applied transformation step did.

Reviewing series statistics

The explorer displays key summary statistics calculated for the currently viewed series:

• First: The initial value in the active period.
• Last: The most recent value recorded.
• Minimum: The lowest recorded value.
• Maximum: The highest recorded value.
• Average: The arithmetic mean across the visible values.
• Trend: The general direction of the data over time, including an indicator of how strong the trend is.