Use heat maps
Prerequisites
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You have the Insights Author license.
Page location
Insights > Analyses > Click an analysis
Use heat maps to show a measure for the intersection of two dimensions, with color-coding to easily differentiate where values fall in the range. Heat maps can also be used to show the count of values for the intersection of the two dimensions.
For example, the following heat map shows which products are most used by the customers in these countries, measured by a simple count.
Each rectangle on a heat map represents the value for the specified measure for the intersection of the selected dimensions. Rectangle color represents where the value falls in the range for the measure, with darker colors indicating higher values and lighter colors indicating lower ones.
Heat maps show up to 50 data points for rows and up to 50 data points for columns. For more information about how Insights handles data that falls outside display limits, see the “Display limits” section in Visual types in Insights.
BEST PRACTICE Heat maps are similar to pivot tables. Use a heat map if you want to identify trends and outliers because the use of color makes these easier to spot. Use a pivot table if you want to further analyze data on the visual, for example by changing column sort order or applying aggregate functions across rows or columns.
Procedure
Create a heat map
- Click Visualize (the bar chart icon in the tool bar). The Visuals panel opens.
- Click Add.
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Click the Heat map icon.
- Drag a dimension from the Data panel into the Rows field well.
- Drag a dimension into the Columns field well.
- Drag a measure into the Values field well.
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(Optional) To add drill-down layers, drag at least one more field from the Data panel into the Rows or Columns field wells. For more information about adding drill-downs, see Adding drill-downs to visual data in Insights.
Heat map features
The following table lists the actions you can do with heat maps.
Feature | Supported? | Comments | For more information |
---|---|---|---|
Change the legend display | Yes | Legends on visual types in Insights | |
Change the title display | Yes | Titles and subtitles on visual types in Insights | |
Change the axis range | Not applicable | Range and scale on visual types in Insights | |
Change the visual colors | No | Colors in visual types in Insights | |
Focus on or exclude elements | Yes, with exceptions | You can focus on or exclude a rectangle in a heat map, except when you are using a date field as the rows dimension. In that case, you can only focus on a rectangle, not exclude it. | |
Sort | Yes | You can sort by the fields you choose for the columns and the values. | Sorting visual data in Insights |
Perform field aggregation | Yes | You must apply aggregation to the fields you choose for the value. You cannot apply aggregation to the fields you choose for the rows or columns. | Changing field aggregation |
Add drill-downs | Yes | You can add drill-down levels to the Rows and Columns field wells. | Adding drill-downs to visual data in Insights |
Conditional formatting | No | Conditional formatting on visual types in Insights |
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