Patent ID: 7231596

Claim:
A method for facilitating operations on data, the method comprising: generating a display that visually depicts a table that includes a plurality cells; wherein cells of the table are arranged in a plurality of cell arrays, including a first type of cell array and a second type of cell array, wherein the first type of cell array is one of row and column, and the second type of cell array is the other of row and column; wherein each cell of the plurality of cells is associated with an intersection of a cell array of the first type and a cell array of the second type; displaying, within the plurality of cells, a plurality of values; concurrently displaying a plurality of first controls, wherein each first control of the plurality of first controls is associated with a distinct cell array of the first type; in response to input that selects any first control of the plurality of first controls, performing a first operation based, at least in part, on values contained in the cells that belong to the cell array that is associated with the selected first control; wherein the first operation belongs to the set consisting of: an aggregating operation that combines at least some of the cell arrays of the second type to groups of cell arrays based, at least in part, on values contained in the cells that belong to the cell array associated with the selected first control, wherein after the aggregating operation the table contains one or more combined cell arrays, and wherein combined arrays that belong to the same group are displayed as single cell array; a filtering operation that causes display of a panel that was not displayed prior to selection of the selected first control, wherein the panel presents an interface for specifying filtering criteria, and in response to receiving specification of filtering criteria through the interface, causes the table to display only arrays of the second type that have values, contained in the cells that belong to the cell array associated with the selected first control, that satisfy the specified filtering criteria; a charting operation that causes display of a chart that is based, at least in part, on values contained in the cells that belong to the cell array associated with the selected first control; and a hiding operation that causes the table to be redisplayed hiding the cell array associated with the selected first control.