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ArturoMuñoz
Employee
Employee

Our guest blogger Christophe Brault @christophebrault , will show you how to build a very different type of chart with Qlik Sense. A really smart addition to Qlik's wide chart library that illustrates how standard charts have more to offer when we look at them with the right eyes. Check out Christophe's website for more interesting examples with Qlik https://www.qreatic.fr/

How to build a Quadrant Dot chart, step by step

Have you ever felt restrained with Qlik Sense graphic objects before? Personally, if I'm not careful, I feel like I'm doing the same Dashboard over and over again. Sometimes you want something different, surprising or striking. Those are the days when thinking out of the box gets especially important.

I found the Dot Quadrant chart online and I was curious about how could we achieve something like that in Qlik, so I tried.

DotQuad.gif

In this article I will not discuss when or why to use this visualization, but I'll focus on a detailed guide on how to built it, and more generally, how to hijack basic graphics in Qlik.

Building our grid

First, we need to create a grid that contains all the dots that will make the chart. We will use a Scatter Plot Chart to create a 21 x 21 grid. Notice how we are generating a 21 X 21 grid instead of a 20 by 20, since we need to delimit each sector.

Generate every point in the script 

TMP:
LOAD RECNO() AS X AUTOGENERATE 21;
JOIN LOAD RECNO() AS Y AUTOGENERATE 21;

Prepare your data

DATA :
LOAD X &'|'& Y AS POINT,
X+Y AS TOTAL,
X,Y
RESIDENT TMP;
DROP TABLE TMP;

 

Create the Dot Quadrant chart using a scatter chart and filling dimension with the field called Point, and X Y as measures. Set the Range for both to Max with 22 and there is your grid.

 

pic1.png

Create triangles

The first thing is to remove the points that separate our four sections. It’s easily done with X and Y. Use color "by Expression"  in your chart to set the color to white so they disappear from view. 

IF(X=Y OR X+Y=22, RGB(255,255,255))

 

 

 

pic2.png

 

To know what "triangle" each points belongs to you could use the conditions below

if(Total=22 or X=Y,'NONE',
 if(Total>=23 and Y>X,'TOP',
  if(Total<23 and Y>X,'LEFT',
   if(Total>=23 and Y<X,'RIGHT',
    if(Total<23 and Y<X,'BOTTOM')))))

Using those conditions you can generate a new field in your script called "POSITION" that will help you later on to target the right quarter of your Dot Quadrant Chart

Your loading script by now should look like the code below 

TMP:
LOAD RECNO() AS X AUTOGENERATE 21;
JOIN
LOAD RECNO() AS Y AUTOGENERATE 21;

DATA:
// // DEFINE TRIANGLE POSITION
LOAD X,Y,TOTAL,POINT,
IF(TOTAL=22 OR X=Y,'NONE',
IF(TOTAL>=23 AND Y>X,'TOP',
IF(TOTAL<23 AND Y>X,'LEFT',
IF(TOTAL>=23 AND Y<X,'RIGHT',
IF(TOTAL<23 AND Y<X,'BOTTOM'))))) AS Position;

LOAD X&'|'&Y AS POINT,
X+Y AS TOTAL,
X,Y
RESIDENT TMP;

DROP TABLE TMP;

 

 

Once you know where each dot belongs to, is time to color each one of the quadrants. You can reuse the field "Position" in Color by Expression :

if(Position='NONE',rgb(255,255,255),
if(Position='TOP',rgb(231, 76, 60),
if(Position='RIGHT',rgb(41, 128, 185),
if(Position='BOTTOM',rgb(230, 126, 34),
if(Position='LEFT',rgb(22, 160, 133)
)))))

pic3.png

 

Displaying KPI in the grid

In my example, I have four metrics and one dimension, year, containing two values. Since each quarter is made up of 100 points, it is time to asing them a value from 1 to 100 starting from the center dot. This way you will be able to control how the sections will fill up. You want them to fill up starting from the center outwards.

In the load script,  is time to create a new field called "NoPoint" as shown below

Top:
load Position,X,Y,RowNo() as NoPointT Resident Data
Where Position ='TOP'
Order by Y asc;

Right:
load Position,X,Y,rowno() as NoPointR Resident Data
Where Position ='RIGHT'
Order by X asc;

Bottom:
load Position,X,Y,RowNo() as NoPointB Resident Data
Where Position ='BOTTOM'
Order by Y desc;

Left:
load Position,X,Y,rowno() as NoPointL Resident Data
Where Position ='LEFT'
Order by X desc;


All:
LOAD Position,X,Y,NoPointT as NoPoint Resident Top;
Concatenate(All)
LOAD Position,X,Y,NoPointR as NoPoint Resident Right;
Concatenate(All)
LOAD Position,X,Y,NoPointB as NoPoint Resident Bottom;
Concatenate(All)
LOAD Position,X,Y,NoPointL as NoPoint Resident Left;

join(Data)
LOAD * resident All;

Drop tables All,Top,Right,Bottom,Left;

 

 

 

Finally, go back to the chart coloring properties panel and add each KPI like

Position='TOP' and Sum({$<Metric={'Sales'}>}Percentage)*100>=NoPoint

 

 

By know, your color expression should be something like this

if(X+Y=22 or X=Y,'#ffffff',
if(Position='TOP' and Sum({$<Metric={'Sales'}>}Percentage)*100>=NoPoint,'#e74c3c',
if(Position='RIGHT' and Sum({$<Metric={'Profit'}>}Percentage)*100>=NoPoint,'#2980b9',
if(Position='BOTTOM',
if(Sum({$<Metric={'Headcount'}>}Percentage)*100>=NoPoint,'#e67e22','#bdc3c7'),
if(Position='LEFT',
if(Sum({$<Metric={'Cost'}>}Percentage)*100>=NoPoint,'#16a085','#bdc3c7')
,'#bdc3c7')
)
)
)
)

To complete your chart remember to hide what you don't need in there, the Labels and Titles for X and Y and Voila !

Thanks for reading and find more chart hijacking at https://www.qreatic.fr/dailyqlikchallenge/category/Charts+Hijacking

Christophe Brault

 

PS: Check Christophe's Dot Quadrant app attached 

 

6 Comments
skamath1
Creator III
Creator III

Hi Arturo,

Great Article and good visual design. I see the typos in the script for the Position. 

IF(TOTAL<23 AND Y<X,'BOTTOM'))))) AS Position; 

 BOTTOM should be replaced with BOT, as at other places it is referred to as BOT.

I tried to replicate the same chart in QlikView. I have to place the color expression in the Background of the X measure.

Dot Quadrant Chart.PNG

 

 

 

 

2,125 Views
ArturoMuñoz
Employee
Employee

BOT & BOTTOM issue fixed 😉

0 Likes
2,056 Views
barnabyd
Partner - Creator III
Partner - Creator III

G'day @ArturoMuñoz,

Thanks for the article. I'm am always impressed by how flexible the Qlik Sense is that you can create such a variety of visualisations out of the standard chart types.

This chart type looks very striking but I'm not sure that it is very effective in conveying the information. The fact that you need to have the KPI objects to show the numeric values demonstrates that it is not very good at displaying the percentage values. A vertical bar chart or four simple straight gauges would work better, I think. It also doesn't easily allow for comparisons to a target or to last month's values, which is what makes your dashboards actionable.

I'm sorry to rain on your parade. I feel your frustration, but maybe building the same dashboard all the time is a good thing. Standardisation makes things more useable, particularly if the standard follows best practice. This about car designers - occasionally they will come up with some weird and striking designs like this or this, but they are rarely useful our daily lives.

Cheers, Barnaby.

2,033 Views
ArturoMuñoz
Employee
Employee

Hey Barnaby,

You made really good points, it's true that under certain parameters this chart is not the best pick at describing the data. Our loved Tufte won't be happy with this chart, the data-ink ratio is not great, it takes a lot for the value it offers.

On the other hand, and based only on my personal experience and observations, making a chart memorable ends up making it a great success at conveying information. Would be great to have some context to the displayed KPIs? Well, yes, absolutely. 

I think that when Christophe wrote this " I will not discuss when or why to use this visualization" he was assuming implicitly most of your comments 😉

Anyhow, this chart hack is still a great example of creating something new out of the standard Qlik available charts, and that should be the morale of the story.

 

 

2,019 Views
skamath1
Creator III
Creator III

Hi Barnaby,

I agree with your points. But sometimes we need some different visuals to showcase and or embed in the export presentation in PDF or PowerPoint. 

I decided to explore more options in QlikView to remove the KPI/Text objects and use the reference Text for the numeric representation included in the chart itself.

skamath1_0-1612302166119.png

 

 

Thank you for your feedback.

 

 

0 Likes
1,950 Views
barnabyd
Partner - Creator III
Partner - Creator III

G'day @ArturoMuñoz,

I have noticed that there are two competing priorities when we talk about creating "great" visualisations. Some are going for the "wow" factor where you get an instant impact on the viewers - this is definitely one of those. Others are attempting to build visualisations that you can look at every day and get a clear picture of your data. You'll be using these charts for months or years.

I think we need to be careful that we know which category we are building for. This Dot Quadrant is great for a one-off presentation where you're showing off your skills and what Qlik can do, but I would not recommend it for everyday use. To me, the red value looks like 90%, the orange looks like > 50%. Then I look at the labels and see that my perception is wrong.

Having said all that, I applaud the innovation. I always say that if I come up 10 ideas and one of them is great, then I'm happy. The other 9 ideas may lead to something else great down the track but otherwise I can forget about them.

Cheers, Barnaby.

1,866 Views