1. An easy way to sort items in your analysis is to select an individual column or row.

In the 2006 column heading, click the area around the 2006 label to select the column. (Tip: In Analysis Studio, when you click the label name, you drill down.) Click the sort button on the toolbar and then click Descending.

2. The items in the Products set are now sorted by year 2006. Notice that a sort icon appears next to the Products set in the overview area. Because our analysis contains nested columns, only the inner set (Products) was sorted. Now we want to also sort the Retailer set.
Select the Retailer set (click either the Retailer box in the overview area or the set selector bar ). Click the sort button on the toolbar and then click Sort by Values and Descending.

3. Items in the Retailer set now appear in descending order of Returns for all years, and items in the Products set are still sorted on the 2006 column. If we now change the measure, Analysis Studio will automatically re-sort our items. Let's replace the Returns measure with Gross margin.

In the Insertable Objects pane, click the Gross margin measure and watch as it is dragged to replace Returns.

4. The items are automatically re-sorted according to the new Gross margin measure. If you hover over the overview area, you see a tooltip that tells you what is sorted. By default, items are sorted by the default measure (Gross margin in this case). Let's perform custom sorting using a different measure.

Click the Retailer set, click the sort button , and then click Custom.

5. Let's sort the Retailer set in descending order using the Revenue measure.

In the Sort page, click the By measure box, click Revenue, and click OK.

6. Now, the items in the Retailer set were dynamically re-sorted in descending order by their total Revenue for all years. If you pause the pointer over the Retailer set in the overview area, you see a tooltip that tells you what is sorted. Next, we will look at the dynamic nature of filters in Analysis Studio. We will start with a new analysis.

Click the new analysis button .

7. Our new analysis is missing only rows. Let's insert all the items from the Product name level. The Insertable Objects pane is already expanded to show the lowest level product and the Information pane is also expanded.

In the Insertable Objects pane, click the TrailChef Water Bag item. In the Information pane, click the Product name level and watch as it is dragged to the Rows area.

8. Similarly to when you sort, Analysis Studio dynamically changes the items when you filter. Let's create a filter for the top three Product name items by Revenue for the total of all years.

Select the Product name set. Click the top or bottom button , click Top, and then click Custom. Under Number of items, click to change the number to 3 and click OK.

12. Notice how the top three products are now different for each retailer. You see the the top three products for each retailer, rather than the overall top three products for all retailers. Unless you explicitly hold the context, Analysis Studio shows you dynamic results.

Click Welcome in the upper-right corner to return to the list of lessons, or try one of the steps again.

11. Because we held the context, see the same top three products listed for each Retailer. However, this is not the default behavior of Analysis Studio. Let's revert to the default behavior of dynamic context.

Select the Product name set. Click the expand icon on the bottom right corner to expand the Properties pane (you may need to scroll down). Click Definition, click Use Dynamic Context, and click OK.

9. We now see the top three products with the highest revenue for the total of all years. Now let's hold the context of our analysis to preserve these top three items. Holding the context is useful when you want to focus on the items that the filter revealed instead of dynamically changing the items.
Click the expand icon on the bottom right corner to expand the Properties pane (you may need to scroll down). Click Definition, click Hold Current Context, and click OK.

10. These top three products will now remain static throughout the rest of the analysis. Notice that a top filter and hold icon appears next to the Product name set in the overview area. Now, let's nest Retailers in our crosstab.

In the Insertable Objects pane, click Retailer and watch as it is dragged to the crosstab.