Creating a report with data

When you are familiar with your data, use Search to quickly find the columns to build your report. When you are not familiar with the columns available in your data, browse the measures and attributes in the Subject Area to see them.

Note: You can rest your cursor over a column with a long name to fully display the column name. If a column name is longer than two line paths, the column name is cut off with "..." and is not fully displayed.

Best Practice: Start with a measure.

To create a report starting with data:

  1. In Visualizer, locate a measure in:
    • In Search, start typing the name of a measure. Visualizer searches all of the measures, attributes, and folders in the subject areas of the space.
    • In the Subject Area, click Measures to browse the list of measures.
      Note: When the name of the attribute or measure includes an underscore (_) or period (.), those characters are omitted from the name in the Subject Area and other parts of the Visualizer interface.
  2. Click the name of the measure or drag and drop it onto the Canvas. Visualizer adds the column to the appropriate bucket in the Chart Builder and builds a visualization on the Canvas. By default, it creates a column chart as indicated by the column icon on the tab next to the measure.
    Note: The Visualizer Chart Builder menu can disappear in a web browser (Chrome, Firefox etc.) if you change the browser font size in the browser settings menu, from medium (recommended) to large or extra-large. If you revert the font size back to Medium, it will restore the staging menu.

    Note: You can hover over a measure in the Chart Builder to display details for that measure.
  3. To change the properties of a measure, in the Chart Builder click the measure and select from the list of options. You can change:
    • Aggregation: Count distinct, count, average, maximum, minimum, or sum.
    • Date type: By Order_Date, Ship_Date, or other date types that exist in the underlying data model.
    • Time series type: Current, trailing 12 months (TTM), trailing 3 months, month ago (MAGO), quarter ago (QAGO), year ago (YAGO), quarter to-date (QTD), year to-date (YTD).
      Note: If you change the time series type, you also need to add a Time attribute such as Time.Month, Time.Quarter, Time.Year to the report.

      If you use a Year attribute in a Visualizer report with a measure that is using the YTD time series, the results will be incorrect. A user can use any other attribute from Time (Quarter, Month, Day) with a fact using the YTD time series and the results will be correct.

    • Chart types: Shows the current chart type and lets you change to another type of chart.
    • Data formatting: See Formatting the Data in a Visualizer Chart and Formatting Visualizer Tabular Reports.
    • Calculations: This option appears after you add an attribute along with the measure. See Changing Measure Calculations.
  4. To change the label of an attribute or measure, first double-click on its name in Chart Builder, to show its properties list. Then double-click the property name to open the edit box, type the new name, and click Apply.
  5. Click Subject Area to go back and find the attributes.
  6. Add an attribute. Chart Builder adds the attribute to Category and plots a bar chart.
  7. Add any other attributes and measures. Some chart types require columns to be added as colors, shapes or sizes. You can also create trellis charts.
  8. Add filters or change the way the data is sorted as needed.
  9. Optionally, you can:
    • Change the style of the chart by changing its chart type.
    • Create an expression and add it to your visualization.
    • Change the axis labels.
  10. Click Save.
Note: Here are some guidelines for creating a report with data:
  • At any time if you want to clear the current report and start over, clickCreate a New Chart (which is located to the left of the Save button).
  • You can drag a column from one section (also called a "bucket") in Chart Builder to another, such as when you want to filter or sort on a column.
  • To delete a measure or attribute, drag the name of the measure or attribute from the Chart Builder to the Subject Area and drop it on the Trash.
  • Click on items in the legend to hide or show objects in the visualization. Click the legend icon if you want to show only the selected item (and hide everything else in the visualization). Click the name in the legend to show everything except the selected item.
  • Visualizer has a 50,000 row limit for tabular data and 2,000 points/rows for chart data.
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