Building a query

Devo offers two different ways of building a query:

• Build a query in the search window - After opening a data table, you can use the tools in the search window to build your query and manipulate data as needed. 
• Build a query using LINQ - For users familiar with LINQ, Devo allows writing queries using this language.

When querying data in Devo, you can apply filters, create calculated columns, or apply aggregation operations. An aggregation operation computes a single value from a collection of values. These operations help you turn your data into real, usable information and can be described as belonging to four categories:

• Filtering data - Filter the data in your table to either include or exclude rows that meet the filter conditions you specify. 
• Group data -  Perform temporal or no temporal data grouping to display all the different row value combinations of the grouped columns. Grouped data can be then aggregated using different operations.
• Aggregate data -  Apply mathematical calculations on sets of grouped values. To use these, your data must already be grouped by time period. The aggregation operation is then applied to the sets of values in each time period grouping.
• Create columns - Perform calculations or use lookup tables to generate new columns based on data that already exists in your table.

Learn more about applying query operations using the search window tools and the LINQ language in the following articles. For a complete list of operations that you can apply to your queries, see the Operations reference.