Creating and linking categories

Creating categories

• Create a new category via the + icon in the in-model left panel.

• You can also create a new category directly on a variable by clicking on the Categories button and adding a category breakdown.

• Create a category from data
  • If categories exist in your data sources, these will show up as options when you click on the Categories button on a data-connected variable. If you select these categories, this will automatically create the category in Causal (if they do not exist in Causal yet), and add it to your model/variables. See linking categories to data sources for more.

• Give categories an icon to distinguish them, by clicking the icon next to the category name

• Add new category items in the bottom row where it says New Item. All category items for a category must be unique, i.e. you cannot have two duplicate category items.

Linking categories together

Often, there will be a relationship between categories. For example, assigning each Employee to a Job Title, or assigning each Deal to a Sales Rep. To link categories, click the + in the far-right column (via the Data Tables, or the standalone category workspace) and select the Link category option.

This will create an extra column in the data table, letting you map the two categories together (e.g. giving each Employee a Location).

Indirect category mappings

You can show/hide indirect category mappings in the Data Tables, or on the standalone category page. Here's an example:

• If each Employee has a Title, and each Title sits within a Team, then each Employee sits within a Team via their Title
• The "indirect" category mapping is from the Employee to their Team
• When in the Employee category, you can reveal the Team of each employee by hitting the ">" next to Title in the header

Bringing existing categories into models

To pull in an existing category into a model, simply find the category under the + icon in the in-model left panel. Bring in multiple categories at once by clicking multiple categories while the picker is open.

Or, click the Categories button on a variable, to add that category to the variable (and to the model).

Pasting category items into Causal

To paste data in (e.g. from a spreadsheet), simply copy your data, then select your row/s, and paste (Ctrl/Cmd + V). Causal will "paste over" whatever row/s you had selected. If you don't want to paste over what you have already in the Data Table, then create a New Item at the bottom of the table (you may have to take off alphabetical sorting if you have that applied), select that New Item, and paste over that.