Table views in Analytics let you arrange the way Analytics table data is displayed. Views appear in the Analytics display area and contain named columns and numbered records. The columns in a view represent fields in the associated table layout – either physical data fields or computed fields.
How table views relate to Analytics tables
The diagram below illustrates views in relation to the other components of an Analytics table.
For more information about how views relate to Analytics tables generally, see The structure of Analytics tables.
Views provide flexibility
Views are a flexible tool that allow you to display just the columns of data you want to see in the associated Analytics table, and to arrange the columns in the manner most effective for your analysis.
You can create multiple views for the same table, each of them with a different selection and arrangement of fields from the table. For example, if you are interested in only five fields in a table that contains a hundred fields, you can create a view with only the five relevant fields, and put them in the order you find most convenient.
You can also use views to format the data for Analytics reports.
The Analytics Default_View
When you open a new table for the first time in Analytics, a view called “Default_View” is automatically created. The “Default_View” includes all the fields defined in the associated table layout, in the order in which they appear in the layout.
You can use the default view without modification, modify it to better suit your needs, modify it and save it as a new view, or create new views that are not based on the default view.
The relation between views and table layouts
Although views are associated with an underlying table layout, changes to the view do not change the table layout. For example, if you remove a column from a view, the corresponding field is not deleted from the table layout.
Changes to the table layout are not automatically displayed in existing views. For example, if you create a new computed field or define a new physical data field in a table layout, you need to manually add it to any views where it is required.
Deleting a field from the table layout does automatically remove the column from any associated views.
