Business Tutorial: MRI-Simmons Catalyst

A Cross Tab report allows you to create custom consumer profiles and data reports by analyzing the relationship between two variables or gain specific insights on a "target". A crosstab is built from rows and columns containing different groups of survey responders, which MRI-Simmons then compares and shows the correlation that may exist between them.

For a more in-depth explanation of crosstab terminology, see the below MRI Simmons support document:

Note: This tutorial is for the new 2.0 version of MRI Simmons

Step 1: From the Analyze menu, select Crosstab. This will open the Composer window where we can build the elements of our crosstab.

Step 2: Select the study you will pull data from. The most recent study will be selected by default, but you can change this by clicking the dropdown menu.

Step 3: Search for a product, brand, or interest by typing your search terms into the bar above the dictionary categories. This search will show you the general category(s) in which your search term can be found, take note that some products may exist in multiple categories, and you will have to decide which is most applicable.

Step 4: Narrow your search. Click into your subcategory to view the brands or users associated with it. In this case “coffee on the go” has separate subcategories for all users who responded to this question, the places they said they purchased their coffee, and how many cups they said they purchased in the last 7 days.

Step 5: Select your targets, and then click ADD.

Step 6: Add your columns. Typically, the columns of a crosstab are the audience you want to know about, or the "target". This could be a certain demographic group, media consumer, or (in this case) brand consumer. You may add multiple columns for comparison, such as this example which compares the coffee purchasers at coffee shops, convenience stores, and fast-food restaurants. You may also modify the labels of the items for easier reading in the spreadsheet later. When you are ready, select the targets you wish to add, and click Add to Columns.

Step 7: Search for your rows. Repeat steps 3-5 to search for the row(s) of your crosstab.  Rows are built from what you want to know about your "target" column audience. This might be what other buying habits they have, their media usage, their demographics, etc. This example looks at the genres of movie enjoyed by coffee purchasers (our target audiences) from the above locations.

Step 8: Add your rows. Once you have selected your targets from the search results, click Add to Rows.

Step 9: Review and run report. Once you have added your columns and rows, they will appear in the Report Preview window. From here, we can run our crosstab by clicking Run Report.

Modifying and Exporting a Crosstab
Once we have run a crosstab report, we can modify the data prior to exporting it to Excel. The menu on the lefthand side allows you to change the base or study being polled, as well as hide or highlight certain variables. If you are ready to export your crosstab, see Step 11.

Step 10: Filter unstable data. This is optional, but depending on how narrow your categories were, some results may have too few respondents to be considered “stable”. In this case MRI Simmons will highlight these unweighted cells in * red.

To hide these unstable data points, open the Filters Selector from the left-hand menu. Here we can add a filter which will highlight or hide certain parts of our crosstab. This example will hide any cells with an unweighted value between 31 and 60 (the unstable values). For more information about what each variable represents, see our tutorial on Reading a Crosstab. When you have created your filter, click add, and then apply to apply it to your crosstab.

Step 11: Export your report. If you have finished filtering/modifying your data, click the three dots in the top right corner, and select in what format you would like to download your report. Please note that crosstabs will not save automatically, so if you want to come back later and change your variables you will need to save your report in MRI prior to exporting.

Don’t forget to LOG OUT when you are finished using MRI Simmons. Log out by clicking the BU profile in the top right corner.

Note: This tutorial is for the old 1.0 version of MRI Simmons

 Step 1: The Crosstab Smart Search will be the default search option when logging into the database. If not, select "Crosstab" from the "Essentials" menu.

Step 2: Select a study. The current study will be shown but you can select other studies by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to NHCS Adults. 

Step 3: Enter Search Terms. Search for a product, brand or interest using the "Smart Search" box. Just start by typing in keywords to search for a variable. 
Select a "Variable" from the list or use "Narrow Categories" to narrow down the results.
Make sure to take a close look at the list of variables due to the differences in categories. In the example below, you will see "BRANDS ALSO" which means that while consumers used this brand, it was not their most used brand, You will also see other categories such as "BRANDS MO" which means that consumers indicated that this is the brand that they used most often.

Step 4: Set Columns. Put your variable into a column by clicking on the Columns icon located on the right-hand side. The variable will be added to the left-hand side of the page.
Typically, you will put the product, brand, interest, or activity you are analyzing into columns. If you would like, you can search for additional products or brands and add them as additional columns for comparison.

Step 5: Set Rows. In order to create a crosstab, you will need to add rows to compare versus the data in your columns. Rows will typically be demographic descriptions such as age or gender as well as psychographic characteristics, media usage, etc..
Put your variable into a row by clicking on the Rows icon located on the right-hand side. The variable will be added to the left-hand side of the page. You may want to use the option on the left to help narrow down variables such as Millennials. 

Step 6: Run the Crosstab. Click on the arrow button on the right-hand side to run the crosstab analysis. You can view your Column and Row selections on the left-hand side of the page.

Step 7: View your Crosstab.  The default view is the "Private Eye View", which displays all data horizontally. You may want to change the "Chart Type" to CrossTab View in order to better read the data. 

Step 8:  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 choose .SPC file, a special MRI-Simmons Insights file type. If you return to MRI-Simmons Insights at a later time, you can upload the .SPC file to continue working where you left off.