TopolearnMost analysis questions are a table; free form gives you full control over its shape.
The Free form technique with the Table visualisation is where you will spend most Explore time. Tab settings slots:
- Rows: up to five dimensions. With more than one, they nest: Country then Device category gives a row per combination. The Nested rows toggle shows them as an indented tree instead of a flat list. Start row and Show rows (10 to 500) page through long lists.
- Columns: up to two dimensions pivoted across the top, e.g. Month to turn a list into a trend table or Session default channel group to compare channels side by side. Show columns limits how many values.
- Values: up to ten metrics. Cell type can be plain text, a bar chart in the cell, or a heat map, which makes outliers visible without reading numbers.
- Filters: up to ten conditions on dimensions or metrics (Page path contains /blog/, Event count > 100). Filters restrict the rows of this tab; they are not segments.
- Segment comparisons: up to four segments; the table then shows one block per segment.
A useful pattern: Rows = Landing page + query string, Columns = Session default channel group, Values = Sessions, Engagement rate, Key events, filter Sessions > 50. Sort by clicking a metric header.
Free form is also the only technique with the Pivot idea in a strict sense: moving a dimension from Rows to Columns is pivoting it, and the canvas updates immediately.
Remember scopes: a table with Session source in rows and Users in values asks how many users had at least one session from each source, which double-counts users across rows. That is expected, not a bug; totals in the footer are deduplicated.
Right-click any cell to drill: Include only, Exclude, Create segment from selection, View users.
Remember
- Rows (up to 5, nestable), Columns (up to 2), Values (up to 10), Filters (up to 10)
- Cell type bar/heat map makes patterns visible; Show rows goes to 500
- Users can be counted in several rows; the footer total is deduplicated