Google Data Studio – Pivot table as filter control
To go fast, Pivot table is a good solution to get filter control combining 2 consistent dimensions.
Of course, assuming that:
- There is a strong correlation between the combined dimensions
- The cardinality of values for each dimension is low (and so the pivot table displays easily all the combinations by default)
In the example below, I create a pivot table filter using page views of device categories and responsive versions. Responsive version is a simple Google Analytics custom dimension, collecting the width media version of the website grid design.

We can also use it for the following other use cases :
- Traffic channels / cost model
- User types / buckets of number of sessions
- Product brands / product ranges
- CTA wording / CTA colors for for multivariate testing
- [UPDATE] Content categories / content targeted audiences for the Data Studio resources report made by the GDS hero, Sir Lee Hurst @Helpfullee
- …
Pivot table configuration
Create your pivot table selecting the wished row and column dimensions, then, on the data tab:
- Select the right metric; Page views in this example
- Display the metric as Percent of total to get additional easy-to-ready information on the filter
- Show grand total for rows and column to get intermediary sums
- Sort row and column by dimension ascending, to not have to depend to metric state
- Activate “Apply filter”

Additional tip
For all chart filters, you can select several values or combinations of values using crtl+click (mac cmd+click).