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:
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Column
-
Bar
-
Pie
-
Line
-
Spline
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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: