The new Subtotals feature in Analytics helps us see activity across multiple layers of Dimensions at once.

Using it in an analysis will change what your report looks like, as well as how your data is expected to behave. Let's take a look.

Getting the Subtotals button

Subtotals will not be an option on every report. To get it to appear, we need at least two non-pivoted Dimensions on a report. Say for example, we open up Recent Sales:

The only checkbox we'll see in our data is "Totals"

However, if we add another Dimension, perhaps "Store"

We'll see it show up as an option

So to see what it does, let's run our report without Subtotals:

And let's visualize our data on the new Table visualization:

The data will look something like this:

Where we get a line for each Date/Store pairing.

So let's now check the "Subtotals" box:

and run the report again:

Now the table will lay out our data in a very different way:

At the top of each "date" we'll see a total for the sales, and below it, we'll see each Store's contribution towards that day's sales.

Collapsing Subtotals

If we are using the Subtotals feature, we can optionally define whether we want the subtotals expanded:

Or collapsed:

Upon which, we can open the subtotals by clicking on the adjacent arrow:

Downloading Reports with Subtotals

When we choose to format data with subtotals. Our downloaded files will behave the same way. For example, if I export the un-subtotalled version of our data:

The data will follow this convention:

Similarly, if we choose to format our table with subtotals:

our downloaded data will follow a similar convention:

We will see, for example, blank spaces where a subtotal is taking place:

and we will see the values of subtotals also in line with the raw data.

Choosing the data formatting for the data action

The above means that the measures displayed in Subtotalled reports are not expected to be summed. This will reference the same activity multiple times across levels of totals.

If you wish to use an exported report for further data analysis, creating pivot tables or other reports using spreadsheets, we recommend not using the "Subtotals' ' feature, as it creates additional complexity in extracting the nuance of behavior.

If you wish simply to have a multiple-level view of the activity, but are not planning on manipulating the data further, using subtotals can be a good way of interpreting the smaller and larger trends in your store at once.