Combine multiple demographics into a single value

This article guides you through the process of creating a single demographic that provides a single total value for more than one existing demographics. We call this a combined demographic.

You will need to be an Organisation Administrator to do this.

Required time: 2 minutes.

In our step-by-step guide, we will use a commonly-required example of this to combine multiple demographics spanning several population age bands into a single "target age" demographic.

Getting started

Access your Organisation Administration Home page. If you're unsure how to do this, use this article.

1. Select Demographics from the navigation menu, and then
2. Click Create new demographic to the right-hand side of the Demographics section.

Demographics are managed from the Demographics page in Organisation Administration. From here, you can easily create a new one.

Step 1 - The basics

Let's start by giving the demographic an appropriate name and then choose Combined under Type.

Creating a combined demographic is easy with the wizard.

Next, under Use, select the demographic set which provides the individual demographics you'd like to combine. We're going to use the UK Census 2010.

Click Select demographics to combine to begin the selection.

If you choose the wrong set, you'll be able to return to change it, but once the demographic has been saved, you can't change the set.

Choosing the demographics to combine

When choosing the demographics to combine, take note that:

1. You must select at least two demographics (also note point 3).
2. You can only select demographics that are in the same group.
3. Some demographics are tiered within a group. If you select a demographic which contains multiple sub-demographics, the sub-demographics are all selected, but they do not count towards your minimum requirement from point 1.
4. Some demographics provide values that cannot be aggregated and will not be shown to you.

To help you quickly find what you want, we've placed a handy filter at the top of the page. The filter works on a contains-basis and is case-insensitive (matching age in Mortgage and Age). If any demographic name or group matches your filter, all demographics within the group will be displayed.

Selecting or deselecting demographics simply requires clicking on them.
Notice how selecting demographics from the group on the right has disabled selections from the left group.

Make your selection, and then click Save and close to return to the Create demographic wizard.

Notice that the demographics you selected to combine are now displayed under Combine.

Click Continue to move on.

Step 2 - Settings

Settings allow you to fine-tune how demographic values will appear on the map.

When creating a combined demographic, you can usually leave the values as their defaults.

Click Continue to move on.

Step 3 - Review and finish

The final stage simply confirms your choices through this process. If you've made a mistake, now is the time to go back and correct it.

When reviewing your combined demographic, scroll down for a handy table that shows you which layers will be able to use the one you're creating.

Click Save and close to complete the process, and remember to add your new demographic to the layers you want to see it on.