Compact view is a way to get a summary of a set of data. It focuses on grouped entries, and is only available if you have them in the Table view.
Grouping entries in a table view puts entries with a particular field value together. Compact view compresses each group into a single row and provides a summary of all of the entries in the group.
Note that the summary you see in the compact view always depends on what is in the corresponding table view — to change what is in the former, you must change the latter.
If no subtotals are enabled (see below), the compact view will show you how many entries are in each group. If you want the entry count to appear on a compact view even if there are other subtotals, enable the Show entry count option:
A summary can be very useful if you have numeric data (or money data) and you have activated Subtotals for a column. The compact view will show you the subtotals for each group (without the individual values of each entry) along with the grand totals at the bottom.
If you have no subtotals, you will see a simple count of the number of entries in each group.
It is possible to add more than one level of grouping to the table view — that is to have groups within groups. For each of these levels, the compact view will display one column — so if you have two levels of grouping, you will see two columns (plus one for whatever subtotals you have added). If you have three levels (groups within groups within groups), there will be three columns in the compact view.
As long as there are at least two groups, the compact view will also allow you to Pivot columns — to rotate the axis of a group/column so that the summary is displayed across each row instead of down a single column. You cannot pivot if there is only one level of grouping.
Because the compact view doesn’t show individual Entries, it can only be exported in certain formats. The CSV export will contain the data shown in the compact view. Other export formats will show the individual entries from the associated Table view instead.