This article will cover Qlik Sense visualisations, including what they are, how to work with them and a few case examples of start-to-finish visualisation creation.
What are visualisations
Qlik Sense visualisations are everything you see on a sheet as a user. Visualisations allow developers to display data in the most appropriate way, give users a way to filter the data down to a specific requirement and allow developers to personalise sheets to serve a specific purpose.
Visualisations and the customising options of each one will vary depending on the product and version you are using. In addition to ‘out of the box’ visualisations, you can download ‘extensions’ and upload them to your Qlik Sense environment. Extensions are also visualisations and some come as standard with Qlik Sense if you are using the Cloud version. They can be built by people/ businesses other than Qlik Sense so you may have to pay a fee to use a particular one.
When editing a sheet, all visualisations can be found in the ‘Charts’ or ‘Custom objects’ asset sections. If you are using the simple sheet builder in the cloud, visualisations are found in the ‘Properties’ section of the ‘Fields’ and ‘Master Items’ asset sections.
How to use visualisations
Advanced sheet-building mode
Advanced sheet-building mode is toggled using a switch on the right top of the sheet in the Qlik Cloud. It is the only sheet builder available with other Qlik Sense products at the time of writing.
Adding visualisations to a sheet
To add a visualisation to the sheet simply click and drag the one you want anywhere onto the sheet:
Edit a visualisation
After a visualisation has been added to a sheet, there are a few things you can do with it before or after you’ve added data. These include:
- Moving – just click and drag the existing visualisation to a different place on the sheet to move it.
- Resizing – click and drag on any of the square points around the visualisation (in the corners and halfway on each edge) to resize the visualisation along that edge.
- Deleting – click on the visualisation and hit the ‘delete’ key or right-click on it and select ‘delete’.
- Copying/ cutting and pasting – either use the usual keyboard shortcuts after clicking on the visualisation or right-click and choose the relevant option.
- Replacing – drag another visualisation on top of the existing one. Qlik will ask whether you want to convert or replace the visualisation. If you choose to convert, Qlik will attempt to map your existing visualisation data to the new visualisation type. If you choose to replace it, the visualisation will be replaced with a blank one of the type you dragged on.
Visualisation properties
Once a visualisation is on the sheet, if you click on it, on the right side of the sheet you will see its properties. The properties will vary depending on the visualisation type and your Qlik Sense product/ version. Properties of most visualisations will, as a minimum, contain the following sections:
- Data – this is where you can add data to the visualisation. You will usually get a choice of whether to add a dimension or measure. A dimension is a data type by which you care grouping (categorical data), such as date, product, region, age, year etc. A measure is the data being grouped such as orders, customers, bookings, visitors etc.
- Sorting – after you have added the data, the sorting section allows you to change the working of this data in the visualisation. For example, if you have added a data table, which column should it be sorted by?
- Add-ons – the contents of this section do vary a bit but can include data handling, reference lines and alternate states (sometimes found under appearance)
- Appearance – this section is entirely dependent on the visualisation type. At the minimum, you can add a title, subtitle and footer. Other options include axis customisation, colours, legend, tooltip etc.
Simple sheet-building mode
At the time of writing, the simple sheet editor is only available in the cloud. To toggle it on, make sure that the ‘advanced options’ toggle at the top right of the sheet is off.
Adding visualisations to a sheet
To add a visualisation, you have to choose a visualisation from the options available and click on it. Qlik will then place it onto the sheet for you:
To add additional visualisations, click on the ‘+’ boxes either to the right or below the visualisation. This will add an additional sheet section and you can then click on it and choose a visualisation to go there.
Edit a visualisation
After a visualisation has been added to a sheet, there are a few things you can do with it before or after you’ve added data. These include:
- Moving – you can only move visualisations if you have multiple on the sheet. When you hover over one, you will see a button in the top left of the visualisation. Click on it, and you can drag the visualisation to be in front/ behind/ below or above another existing one.
- Resizing – you can only resize if you have multiple visualisations on the sheet. When you do, click on the one you want to resize. You should see a black rectangle on the edge of the visualisation where it borders another. Click and drag this rectangle to make the visualisation larger or smaller along that edge. Note that this will also resize the bordering visualisation.
- Deleting – click on the visualisation and hit the ‘delete’ key or right-click on it and select ‘delete’.
- Copying/ cutting and pasting – either use the usual keyboard shortcuts after clicking on the visualisation or right-click and choose the relevant option.
- Replacing – click on the existing visualisation and click on the new type you would like. If your visualisation has data, Qlik will attempt to map it to the new visualisation type.
Visualisation properties
Once a visualisation is on the sheet, you can see the visualisation properties on the left of the sheet. The options do vary a bit but here are the ones you are likely to come across:
- Data – this is where you can add data to the visualisation. You will usually get a choice of whether to add a dimension or measure. A dimension is a data type by which you care grouping (categorical data), such as date, product, region, age, year etc. A measure is the data being grouped such as orders, customers, bookings, visitors etc.
- Visualization – you can change the visualisation type here if required.
- Filters – if you want to prefilter the visualisation by something, you can do so here. The filters applied will be shown in the footer of the visualisation. The users will not be able to remove them. This is a great way to filter a visualisation without using set analysis.
- Presentation – here you will find various customising options such as data sorting, colours, axis personalisation, etc. The options here vary depending on the visualisation type.
Example 1: line chart of page views
In this example, we will create a line chart of page views for a fictional blog website, splitting the visitors by the session medium (where they came from).
Step 1: add a line chart and populate it with data
To add a line chart, we drag and drop a line chart onto the sheet. We then add two dimensions: the date of the page view and the session medium of the visitor. We add a single measure: the number of page views.
Step 2: edit the data parameters and sorting
Data parameters include things like names of the fields, limitations of the dimension (e.g. show only the top 10), number format of the measure and a few other advanced things such as options to specify when a dimension should be shown vs. hidden.
For this example, we are happy with the field names and we do not require any of the advanced options.
The date axis displays as ‘continuous’ therefore we have no need (or option) to change the sorting of the chart.
Step 3: add reference lines
In the ‘add-ons’ property, there is a section for ‘reference lines’. This functional blog aims for at least 50 daily views from ‘pin’ visitors and at least 25 daily views from ‘organic’ visitors. We therefore add two reference lines. In the reference line options, we add a ‘label’, make the line dashed and change the colour of the line and the background of the label.
Step 4: style the chart
For line charts, the customisation options available are huge. Under the ‘appearance > presentation’ property, we decided to change the lines to a filled area. Under the ‘appearance > x-asix’ property, we removed the x-axis labels as it is obvious that the axis shows a date and the lines show a medium (we leave the legend title on). We also added a chart title under the ‘appearance > general’ property. All other options we left as default.
Example 2: bar chart of month-on-month change of page views by country
In this example, we will create a bar chart of month-on-month page views for a fictional blog website, splitting the visitors by the country they are located in.
Step 1: add a bar chart and populate it with data
To add a bar chart, we drag and drop a bar chart onto the sheet. We then add a ‘Country’ dimension and a measure calculating the month-on-month page views. At this stage, the bar chart looks a pretty sorry state.
Step 2: edit the data parameters and sorting
Data parameters include things like names of the fields, limitations of the dimension (e.g. show only the top 10), number format of the measure and a few other advanced things such as options to specify when a dimension should be shown vs. hidden. We go ahead and rename the page views calculation to something more user-friendly and change the number format to percent instead of number.
We also change the sorting. By default, Qlik has sorted the bar chart from largest percent change to smallest. We change the sorting to be by a custom measure, with the measure being the total number of visits, i.e. we want the countries ordered by our biggest sources at the top.
Step 3: style the chart
For bar charts, the customisation options available are huge. Under the ‘appearance > general’ property, we changed the title of the chart. Under the ‘appearance > presentation’ we changed the bar chart to show horizontally and added value labels. Finally, under the ‘appearance > colours and legend’ property, we changed the colours to be by dimension and switched off the legend that this created by default.
