Visualizations are how we take innumerable rows of data and make them meaningful. With the right combination of Dimensions, Measures, Calculations, and sorting, we can quickly identify outliers, patterns, and trends. It's also the visualizations of reports that are sent out in subscription emails, so it's worthwhile to have a few points to make the most of your visualizations.

It's best to discover the visualizations yourself, to find which ones best illustrate the patterns you want to follow. These are a few observations you can think about when preparing your own visualizations.

*This discussion may become somewhat subjective, as there is an aesthetic component to visualizations. I will do my best to make the observations below as open to different tastes as possible.

Table visualization

While not much more exciting than the report builder, this is important because you can see which data is being included in your visualization.

Hide columns that you don't need by hovering over any column title in the report builder. You'll see the options to pivot, remove, or hide from visualization.

This way, you can focus specifically on the numbers that you wish to measure. You will get an "eye" icon on columns that are hidden from visualization.

Break out the types of measures.

The types of measures

Sometimes graphs need to look at multiple sets of measures to be fully meaningful. Perhaps Qty, GMROI, a Dollar amount, or a Turn might be important on one of the visualizations.

For example, I may have sold 1000 products on Saturday for a total of $50,000, but if I measure them on the same graph, I won't be able to read the Qty.

Using the gear icon on the right-hand side of the Visualization bar, I could navigate to the "Y" axis.

then drag "Quantity Sold" down to the Right Axes.

This way, I measure the dollar amounts on the left hand side of my graph, and measure the qty amounts on the right hand side.

Hide rows

A good way to gather sales data from different time frames is to sum their respective totals, and then show only the first line of totals in the visualization.

If my raw data looks like

Then after hiding columns I don't need, I can navigate to the gear icon on my Visualization bar.

And then select "Limit Displayed Rows"

Here, I will opt to only Show the first row

So that when you display in visualization as a graph, it's a more meaningful visualization. And on that note.

Changing colors

On the Series tab, you can access the colors being displayed on your graphs.

Here you can choose a color from the pallet, or copy+paste the color code to harmonize your data.

Making your graphs readable as quickly as possible.

Give tables conditional formatting

If we're using a table to compare last month to this month, for example, we can use Conditional Formatting to respond to numeric values, say to highlight negative and positive change...

1. Under The formatting, let's enable conditional formatting.

   

2. Start by selecting If the Value is less than... 0

   

3. Now you can set the visual rules. In this case, if the change is less than zero, make the font red and bold.

   

4. Now, add a new rule for if the values are greater than zero.

   

The table follows the rules that you have set.