Introduction to Charts & Graphs

Estimated Reading Time:  3 minutes

Overview

Data visualization tools like charts are a great way to gather insights from a set of data. In the Module Editor, you'll see a Charts & Graphs drop-down after Data & Events Processing. This group of components displays aggregated statistics for data.

Charts & Graphs components include:

  • KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
  • Map
  • Chart
  • Map V2

You'll find the Charts & Graphs components on the left side of the Module Editor in the Charts & Graphs group.

NOTE  In Express View, these components show up as widgets. A widget is just a fancy name for a mini-report. Widgets display your data in a few ways, including numeric metrics, tables, or charts. Plus, a widget displays your data in a way that lets your end-user interact with it.

What You'll Learn

In this article, you'll learn what each Charts & Graphs component does.

What are the Charts & Graphs Components?

Let's look at each of the Charts & Graphs components.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Component

Sometimes you want to measure the performance of a particular activity. For example, you might want to see the number of submissions in your dashboard. The KPI component makes this easy. All you have to do is add a KPI component to your dashboard. KPIs are a great way to measure and get an at-a-glance view of a key metric.

Here's an Express View of a KPI widget showing the number of accounts (submissions) in a dashboard:

Map Component

You'll notice a Map component and a Map V2 component. You can think of these as Map Version 1 and Map Version 2. So, when do you use one over the other? The main difference is that Map is a basic chart-like component, so it displays a map chart. Then, you've got the enhanced Map V2. Map V2 uses Google Maps to display an interactive Google Maps view. We'll cover Map V2 later.

Here's a bare-bones example of how a Map widget looks in Express View:

Chart Component

The Chart component makes it easy to add different types of charts to your module. This component loops through every index of a data structure. Then, it looks for a numerical value to show in the chart.

With the Chart component, you can choose from these types of charts:

  • Column

  • Bar

  • Pie

  • Line

  • Spline

  • Scatter

  • Funnel

  • Bubble

  • Heatmap

Here's an Express View example of a bar chart and column chart in action:

Map V2 Component

As a recap, the Map V2 component serves a different purpose than the Map component. The Map (V1) component is a great fit to display a simple, chart-like map. Map V2 uses Google Maps, so it displays an interactive Google Maps view for your end-user. The simplest way to use the Map V2 component is to use it with an Address Search component. Once configured, your end-user can enter their address in Express View. Then, the map pinpoints their location.

Here's an example of the Map V2 widget in Express View: