What are categories?

Categories are useful when you have a concept that's broken down into different categories (hence the name!). Examples:

• Number of customers broken down by Geography
• Revenue broken down by Product Type
• Ad spend broken down by Marketing Channel

The bold items above are categories. Within a category, there will be multiple category items:

Why are categories powerful in Causal?

Using categories means:

• Less formula duplication - you write one Revenue formula, and Causal automatically applies the logic across category items (e.g. each Product Type) for you.
• Less formula re-work - when you want to change the formula logic, you just change it one place for all category items. When you add new category items (e.g. a new Product Type, Model Y), you just add them to the category list, and Causal handles the rest.

Where do I interact with categories?

There are two main spaces to interact with categories:

1. The bottom section of the spreadsheet workspace (within a model), after opening a category from the in-model left panel
2. The standalone category workspace (accessed from your Categories page, by opening any category)

-> The key difference is that the spreadsheet will only show the categories that connected to the model you're in, and also show variables that are used by the category.