In UNICOM Intelligence Reporter - Survey Tabulation and UNICOM Intelligence Reporter, you can use numeric, text, and date variables in your tables by defining an axis specification that bands or codes the values into categories. You can define the axis specification for a variable at the time you create the table. Alternatively, you can save the axis specification in the metadata, and it will be used by default when you subsequently include the variable on the side or top of a table.

Axis specifications that are saved in the metadata are sometimes called axis expressions. You can create axis expressions for Boolean and categorical variables as well as for numeric, text, and date variables. For example, you might want to set up axis expressions for multiple response questions with nets or for rating questions with a mean element to show the average score. For an introduction to axis expressions, see Working with numeric variables.

When defining axis expressions in the metadata, do not include the variable name, just specify the element list syntax. For information about the element list syntax, see Element list syntax.

There are a number of ways you can save an axis expression in the metadata. For example:

Sometimes it is useful to write individual axis specifications to an .mdd file. An easy way of doing this is using MDM Explorer. See Using MDM Explorer to store an axis expression.

You can define axis expressions using mrScriptMetadata in the Metadata Section of a DMS file. Creating axis expressions and exporting to IBM SPSS Statistics.

You can define axis expressions using mrScriptBasic. This is particularly useful when you want to use a standard axis expression for a number of variables. For information on doing this in a standalone mrScriptBasic (.mrs) file, see Creating axis expressions in your script. For information on doing this in a DMS file, see Creating axis expressions in the OnBeforeJobStart Event section.

In the Metadata Model (MDM), axis expressions are saved in the AxisExpression property. This is an unversioned property, which means that you can set it on locked versions of the metadata.