Date Banding

Date bandings allow you to group your data based on date values, e.g. group transaction history by month or year.

To get started:

  1. Press the + icon in the main navigation bar.

  2. Select Date Banding from the available options.

    The banding workspace will open on the editor tab.

Creating a date banding

  1. In the properties pane, select the table the banding will use for its date fields.

  2. On the editor tab, select a source field from the dropdown menu.

    The editor will update with suggested bands for a manual banding.

  3. Press the pen icon to edit the default manual bands.

  4. Enter new values into the boxes and press the tick icon to confirm the new band.

  5. Create more bands by pressing the Add button and using the pen icon to edit them.

  6. Alternatively, change the function to an automatic date banding using the banding function dropdown menu.

  7. In the function menu, press the Refresh button to update the records table.

  8. When you are happy with your banding, save your banding.

Automatic date banding

Use the date banding function menu to select:

Note: the day/month profiles do not account for the month/year respectively, i.e. transactions for January would include January 2022, January 2023, January 2024, etc.

Use interval bandings to separate data by periods taking into account the year.

Weekly interval

  1. Select a start and end date for your banding, or

  2. Check the Use field min and Use field max checkboxes to auto-select the oldest and newest dates in the source field as your endpoints.

When you refresh your banding, records with date information populated will appear in your record table with the week and year.

Week 1 is defined as the week commencing on the first Monday of the year, e.g. W1 2025 = week commencing Jan-6, W1 2026 = week commencing Jan-5, etc.

Records without date information will display as blank.

Month interval

  1. Select a start and end date for your banding, or

  2. Check the Use field min and Use field max checkboxes to auto-select the oldest and newest dates in the source field as your endpoints.

When you refresh your banding, records with date information populated will appear in your record table with the month and year.

Records without date information will display as blank.

Quarterly interval

  1. Select a start and end date for your banding, or

  2. Check the Use field min and Use field max checkboxes to auto-select the oldest and newest dates in the source field as your endpoints.

When you refresh your banding, records with date information populated will appear in your record table with the quarter and year.

Quarters are defined by calendar period, i.e. Q1 = Jan-1 to Mar-31, Q2 = Apr-1 to Jun-30, etc.

Records without date information will display as blank.

Day profile

  1. Select the days to include in your banding by choosing a start and end day.

  2. Set the number of bands created by choosing the number of divisions.

    Audiences will create an even split where possible.

Example: Determine which day of the month a transaction is in.

  1. Set the start day to 1 and the end day to 31 to ensure all days are counted.

  2. Set the divisions to 0 to count each day as a separate band.

Note: January-1, February-1, etc. would all be counted as band 1.

Month profile

  1. Select the months to include in your banding by choosing a start and end month.

  2. Set the number of bands created by choosing the number of divisions.

    Audiences will create an even split where possible.

Example: Determine which quarter a transaction is in.

  1. Set the start month to 1 and the end month to 12 to ensure all months are counted.

  2. Set the divisions to 4 to create four equal bands of three months each.

Note: January-2023, January-2024, etc. would all be counted as band 1<4 in this example.

Year profile

  1. Select the years to include in your banding by choosing a start and end year.

  2. Set the number of bands created by choosing the number of divisions.

    Audiences will create an even split where possible.

Example: group transaction records into bands based on the year for the 2010's.

  1. Set the start year to 2010 and the end month to 2019 to ensure all years for the chosen decade are counted.

  2. Set the divisions to 0 to automatically group by year.

Note: records outside the selected range will display in the records table as NoMatch along with any records that do not have date information populated.

Editing banding properties

Located to the right of the workspace, the properties pane allows you to refine your banding's settings.

Fields

The 'fields to show' options allow you to customise the record number table.

  1. Use the radio buttons to select the type of data template you wish to apply to the results of your banding.

    • User defined - allows you to drag and drop the fields you want to see in your results table.

    • Default data template - uses a default data template if one has been set up in your settings.

    • Specific Data Template - allows you to select a data template. Once selected, the fields from that template will show in the record view.

  2. For the specific data template option, select a data template using the dropdown menu.

The 'syntax fields' option allows you to display fields related to your syntax in the results table.

  1. Use the radio buttons to select if you want to display syntax fields before or after the other fields in your results table.

Saving a banding

  1. In the function menu, press the Save or Save as button.

  2. Enter a name for your banding.

  3. Enter a description.

    Tip: you can also enter a description in the properties pane. This description will pre-populate the field when saving.

  4. Select a location to save the calculated field within Audiences.

    Tip: create folders and subfolders to organise your saved elements.

  5. Press the Save button.