When creating your crosstab, think about who or what you want to study. You will be placing variables into Columns and Rows. Typically, you will put the product, brand, interest, or activity you are analyzing (your target audience) into columns. The demographic characteristics, psychographic variables, media usage, and spending habits information you are interested in will go in the rows.
Step 1: Select Crosstab. On database landing page, hover over Analyze in the top navigation bar, then click on Crosstab. This will open the Composer.
Opening the Crosstab module will bring you into the Composer screen, which allows you to build your rows, columns, and bases from the dictionary. Composer has several search boxes, which, working from left to right, help narrow down your variables and make selections.
Step 2: Select a study. The default option will be be the most recent MRI-Simmons USA Study available in our subscription. Use the drop-down option to see other available studies, including MRI-Simmons Connect. No matter which study you choose to start with, you can easily toggle between studies after you have run your reports.
Step 3: Search or browse the Dictionary for variables for your columns (the target that you want to analyze). You can search for a product, brand, interest, activity. etc. When searching the Dictionary, you will be keyword searching all the variables available within the study. The search results will display all the categories that contain this term.
Step 4: Select variables(s) and add to columns. Navigate the category results to drill-down to a specific variable(s). Click ADD to add the selected variable to the coding/selection box (middle of screen). You can choose multiple variables. If more than one variable is selected, you can add them using the EACH, OR, and AND options. Choose EACH (or leave the boxes blank) to add each item as a separate target, which will allow you to apply Boolean logic in the next box. (EACH is the default setting if none of the boxes are checked.)
For side-by-side comparisons, repeat this step to continue adding variables to columns. For example, you might want to compare consumers who said they purchased Patagonia clothing with those that purchased clothing from Under Armour.
Step 5: Set Columns. When you have completed adding and/or combining variables to the coding/selection box, move them to the Columns box in the Report Preview window (right side of screen). Either click the ADD TO COLUMNS button or drag your items to the columns box.
Step 6: Search or browse the Dictionary and select variables(s) for your rows (whatever it is you want to know about the variables in your columns). This is a repeat of steps #3 and #4. Navigate the category results to drill-down to a specific variable(s). Click ADD to add the selected variable to the coding/selection box (middle of screen). You can choose multiple variables. If more than one variable is selected, you can add them using the EACH, OR, and AND options. Choose EACH (or leave the boxes blank) to add each item as a separate target, which will allow you to compare individual targets later on. (EACH is the default setting if none of the boxes are checked.)
Step 7: Set Rows. When you have completed adding and/or combining variables to the coding/selection box, move them to the Rows box in the Preview window (right side of screen). Either click the ADD TO ROWS button or drag your items to the rows box.
Step 8: Run Report. After selecting the row and column variables that you want included in your crosstab, click RUN REPORT.
Step 9: View Crosstab. The default view is the "Private Eye View", which displays all data horizontally. You may find it easier to scroll and read data in "Crosstab View", which stacks the data. Use "View" options on the left to make the change. Note: Go to the "Read a Crosstab" page of this guide to learn how to interpret the crosstab data.
Step 9: Export your crosstab. Crosstabs can be exported to either an .XLS or .CSV file for you to view and manipulate in Microsoft Excel. You can also save crosstabs as a .SPC file, a special MRI-Simmons file type. If you return to MRI-Simmons Catalyst at a later time, you can upload the .SPC file to continue working.
