- Accessing the New Visualization Canvas
- Configure Your Visualization
- Add Filters to Your Visualization
- Insert, Manage, or Embed Your Visualization
Accessing the New Visualization Canvas
NEW: Visualizations can now be created from derived views!
Creating a visualization of your data is easy! Simply log in with your Socrata account, which will allow you to create and save new visualizations. Then, from the landing page for a dataset, simply click on the Visualize button and select Create Visualization.
Or, from the data table page of a dataset or view, click the green Visualize tab and click on Launch New Visualization. This will open a new page where you can begin building your visualization!
To get started, you'll want to click on the + Add Visualization button in the upper right corner of the page.
Once you do this, you'll open up the visualization editor. To the left of the page, there are four menu buttons: Data, Axis, Presentation, Legends & Flyouts (from top to bottom). Along the top of the editor, you'll see the visualization types: Bar Chart, Column Chart, Pie Chart, Timeline Chart, Histogram, Point Map, and Region Map (from left to right).
Configure Your Visualization
Data
The Data menu is where you will define the building blocks of your chart, including what data you want to chart and how you want to group that data. Read on for a breakdown of all of the configurations available in this menu.
Data Selection
The main components you'll need to create your visualization are a Dimension and a Measure.
- Dimension: a field that orders, groups, or categorizes your date. The dimension is often shown on the x-axis of the chart, or as points on a map.
- Measure: a numeric field or a count of rows associated with the selected dimension.
To get started, you'll want to first select the columns from your dataset that you'd like to chart, or select the type of chart you'd like to create. If you select a Dimension first, you'll notice small green dots next to the available charts based on the datatype of your selected dimension. If you select a Chart type first by clicking on one of the options, you'll see a Recommended Columns section populate in the Data tab.
Group Dimension Values
In this section, you can define the column that you'd like to group your data by. Grouping dimension values breaks out your data into segments based on the selected column.
Bar (or Column) Display Options (Bar and Column charts only)
This section allows you to define how your bars or columns should look in your chart. Use the Multi-Series Display Options section to define whether you'd like series to be grouped, stacked, or 100% stacked.
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Fig 1: Grouped | Fig 2: Stacked | Fig 3: 100% Stacked |
You can also decide whether you'd like all of the columns to be displayed, or if you'd like to only display the first 10 results, for example.
Timeline Display Options (Charts with a date dimension)
For timeline charts, this menu section is where you can define whether you would like your data to be grouped by Year, Month, or Day.
Error Bars (Bar and Column charts only)
For bar and column charts with a numerical dimension, you can add error bars by defining a column that contains your Upper Bound and Lower Bound. You can also modify the color of your error bar in this menu section.
Region (Region maps only)
Choose a region from the dropdown list of your Spatial Lens boundaries to generate a choropleth map.
Axis
The Axis menu allows you to further configure your visualization, including setting the axis scale, sorting, and adding reference lines for key benchmarks.
Scale
To set custom axis bounds, select Custom and type in your Maximum and Minimum values.
Chart Sorting
Select how you would like your chart to sort:
- By Value: numerically ascending or descending
- By Label: alphabetically ascending or descending
Reference Lines
Add reference lines along the y-axis of your chart by defining your reference line value and giving it a label and color. This is great for noting targets and other benchmarks directly on your chart.
Presentation
In this menu, you get to customize the look of your visualization by selecting colors, as well as updating the text labels for your visualization.
General
This is where you can update your visualization Title and Description. You can also uncheck the Show "View Source Data" link box if you would prefer not to surface a link to the underlying data below your visualization.
Color
Choose a color palette for your visualization, or create a custom color palette using the available color options.
Label
In this section, decide whether you want your dimension to be labeled.
Axis Titles
Use this section to set your horizontal and vertical axis titles.
Legends and Flyouts
Flyout Unit Label
Here, you can override the unit label that shows when hovering over your visualization by defining the Singular and Plural unit label you would like to display.
Legends
In this section, you can decide whether you want your legend to be visible on the visualization. Legends are automatically minimized and users must click on Show Legend for the legend to be expanded.
Add Filters to Your Visualization
Throughout the entire editing and creating experience, users are able to apply filters to their visualization by using the Add a Filter button located in the top left corner. Filters will be instantly applied to the visualization and have the option of being hidden by the visualization creator or viewable to the public.
Insert, Manage, or Embed Your Visualization
Clicking Insert places the configured visualization onto the Canvas. From here, users are able to Save or Preview it. The title and description of the visualization canvas can be edited at any time by clicking on the Menu button in the top left-hand corner.
Your newly created visualization will live under “More Views” section of its associated dataset and Primer page. It will also live in the catalog, if the dataset is public, and can be found under the Data Lens type.
You can embed your visualization by clicking on the next to Edit in the top right corner of the visualization. Choose the size you'd like for your embed, grab the embed code and paste it into your website!
When you make filters editable within a visualization, users can interact with these filters within your embed too!
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