“Mark, you need to master ‘using as’ if you want to get good at using Quantrix,” said Mike Salisbury, the firm’s product manager at the time.
Yes, I got it, but I never understood the why until a few years later. Quantrix requires new levels of thinking, as it’s a multi-dimensional modeling tool, not a two-by-two tool like Excel.
As someone who finds himself frequently in an education role where I need to simplify the complex for others, I want the same thing when I’m in learning mode.
Accordingly, when I was exposed to ‘using as’ in Quantrix, I was frustrated because I understood the ‘what’, but I didn’t understand the ‘why’ behind this clause.
In this video, not only do I show you how to use ‘Using As’, but I also provide my first a-ha in better grasping this powerful clause. Also, a tip of the cap to Rich Lopez, whose very first Quantrix video was on the ‘using as’ statement.
Additional Resources
- Superstore dataset from Tableau
- Quantrix Help: Using/As Formulae
Quantrix states categories can be connected to one another with a ‘using as’ statement. While that’s true, that will generally be rare in your models, and that’s why I ignored that capability in the video.
As always, let me know if you want access to the file I created in this video.
