Explore Data

Open the data behind any visual in a spreadsheet-grade grid — then filter it, calculate over it, and chart it again.

Explore Data is the escape hatch from a finished visual back to the rows underneath it. It opens a live grid with sorting, filtering, spreadsheet formulas, and its own chart builder, without leaving the report or touching the visual's own configuration.

Opening It

  • Right-click a chart or table and choose Explore Data. You can apply a filter first, and the exploration opens already scoped to it.
  • Select cells in a table and choose Explore selected cells from the selection summary bar. Only the selection is carried in — and it still gets the full set of export, sort, filter, and statistics tools.

The window has two tabs: Data, the raw grid, and Visualize, a chart and pivot builder over it.

The Data Tab

Sorting

Click a header to sort, and click further headers to sort by several columns at once. Each column's menu also offers Sort A→Z and Z→A, plus a way to clear all sorting.

ℹ️ Sorting Keeps Edits Attached to Their Rows Re-sorting rewrites the whole grid rather than just reordering what's displayed, so formulas and manual edits stay with the row they belong to.

Filtering

Each column's menu carries a full filter builder with these operators:

GroupOperators
Equalityequals, not equals
Comparisongreater than, greater than or equal, less than, less than or equal
Textcontains, not contains, begins with, ends with
Emptinessempty, not empty

There is also an Excel-style Select mode — a checkbox value picker with a search box, which automatically groups date columns by year, month, and day. And each column has a quick "contains" search box for the common case.

Spreadsheet Formulas

Cells are editable, and typing = opens autocomplete across the full formula library — =SUM, =AVERAGE, and the rest.

💡 This Is Not the Table Visualization The table visual on a report has no inline editing. Explore Data does — it's a genuine spreadsheet over the result set, which is what makes it the right place for a quick calculation you don't want to promote into a calculated field.

Layout

  • Reorder columns by dragging, and resize them manually.
  • Row numbers down the left, with automatic column sizing.
  • Right-click for the usual grid actions — cut, copy, paste, insert and remove rows or columns.
  • Pagination with first, previous, and next controls, plus a live row and column count.
ℹ️ Hidden Columns Attributes fetched only to support drill-down are hidden from the grid. They are still present in the result — which is why a column you didn't ask for can appear in an export.

The Visualize Tab

Build a chart over whatever the Data tab currently holds.

ControlOptions
Chart typeBar, Line (default), Scatter, Pie, Funnel, Table, Text, Histogram
X AxisAny column; defaults to the row number
Y AxisA column plus an aggregator: No aggregation, Avg, Count, Count Distinct, Max, Min, Sum
SortDefault, Ascending, Descending
Pivot onA column to split by — available for Table, Bar (stacked segments), and Line (one line per value)

Everything rebuilds live as you change it.

💡 Select First, Then Switch Tabs Select one or two columns in the Data tab before switching to Visualize and the X and Y axes are filled in for you.
ℹ️ Column Reordering Carries Over If you dragged columns into a different order in the Data tab, the Visualize tab reads that order — the axis you pick is the column you moved, not the one that was originally in its position.

The Histogram Type

Histogram answers a different question from the other types: not "what is the total per category" but "how are these values distributed". It buckets the raw Y Axis values into ranges and draws the count in each, with a normal-distribution curve fitted to the data's mean and spread laid over the top for comparison.

Because it works on raw values, Histogram takes only a Y Axis — there is no X Axis, sort, or pivot, and no aggregation. Set a Bin size to control the bucket width, or leave it blank and PersivX picks one from the spread of the data. The bin count is capped at 200.

💡 What the Curve Tells You The overlay is what a normal distribution with your data's mean and spread would look like. Bars sitting well above or below it are where your data departs from that shape — a second peak, a long tail, or a pile-up at a boundary value.

The Text Type

Text renders a single-value summary card. It hides X Axis, Sort, and Pivot — there is no grouping, the whole result is reduced to one number — and it requires an aggregator, since a summary card without one has nothing to show.

Formatting

Charts here use the same number formatting as the report they came from, so a figure reads the same way in Explore Data as it does on the dashboard. Bar, line, scatter, pie, funnel, and histogram charts also offer Save as image.

Export

Export directly from the window as Excel (.xlsx) or CSV.

ℹ️ Exports Take the Grid As You Left It An export from the Data tab carries your current sort order, filters, column order, and any formula or manual cell edits. It is not a fresh query against the server — what you exported is what you were looking at.
⚠️ Governed Datasources CSV export is withheld on governed datasources, and export as a whole depends on your data-export rights. Masked columns stay masked here — Explore Data reads the same governed result the visual did.