Amazon QuickSight – Adding Calculations

Create calculated fields to transform your data by using one or more of the following:

• Operators
• Functions
• Fields that contain data
• Other calculated fields

You can add calculated fields to a dataset during data preparation or from the analysis page. When you add a calculated field to a dataset during data preparation, it’s available to all analyses that use that dataset. When you add a calculated field to a dataset in an analysis, it’s available only in that analysis. 

Amazon QuickSight is a cloud-based, scalable business intelligence (BI) service that enables users to visualize data, create interactive dashboards, and extract insights from their data. One of the powerful features of QuickSight is the ability to add calculations to your data, which allows you to manipulate and transform the data to fit your analysis requirements. Calculations in QuickSight are often referred to as calculated fields.

Calculated Fields

Calculated fields are custom fields created using existing fields from your dataset. They allow you to perform mathematical, logical, and other operations on your data. QuickSight supports a wide range of functions, such as arithmetic operations, conditional expressions, date and time manipulation, and text manipulation.

Creating calculated fields can help you derive new insights from your data, perform complex calculations, or create new metrics. For example, you can calculate the profit margin by dividing the profit by the revenue, or you can calculate the average sales per customer.

Adding Calculations in QuickSight

To create a calculated field in QuickSight, follow these steps:

1. Open your analysis: Navigate to the analysis you want to add the calculation to or create a new analysis.
2. Go to the Field list: In the analysis, locate the Field list pane on the left side of the screen.
3. Add a calculated field: Click the “Create calculated field” button at the top of the Field list pane. This will open the “Create calculated field” dialog.
4. Enter a name: Provide a name for your calculated field. This name will be used to reference the field in your analysis.
5. Enter the formula: In the “Formula” section, enter the expression for your calculation using the available functions and operators. You can use the existing fields in your dataset as variables in your expression. QuickSight provides a list of functions, and you can search for a specific function or browse through the categories.
6. Validate the formula: Click the “Validate” button to ensure that your formula is correct and does not contain any errors.
7. Create the calculated field: Click the “Create” button to add the calculated field to your dataset. The new field will appear in the Field list pane with a purple icon, indicating that it’s a calculated field.

Once you’ve created a calculated field, you can use it in your visuals just like any other field in your dataset. Keep in mind that calculated fields are specific to the analysis they were created in and are not saved back to the underlying dataset. If you need to use the same calculated field across multiple analyses, you will need to recreate it in each analysis.