Comparison Chart

A comparison chart allows you to create a visual representation measuring the relationship between two or more variables.

Comparison charts can help you make faster data-driven decisions. For example, if you’re considering one or more variables, creating a comparison chart tile while you give you a full picture and help you determine the best option.

Some Comparison Use Case

• You can also use a comparison chart to evaluate sales over different periods.

• Use it to compare traffic for different months.

• Use it to compare traffic from different channels.

How to Add a Comparison Chart to your Dashboard

Adding a comparison chart to your dashboard is quite straightforward. Just like when adding any other tile, you have to be within the dashboard.

• Then click on the Manage Dashboard icon at the top-right.

• Under Charts, click on the Comparison charts icon.

The comparison chart creation window should pop up. (This is where you set the specifics you want to display on the chart). It’s also where you edit the chart if you want to change any of the elements.

General Section

The period comparison chart window is not too different from what we’ve discussed under creating tiles.

The first part is the General, where you enter a title and description for the chart.

• For instance, if you want to compare the number of visitors to your site from two different months (May and June), the title can be May and June Visitors Comparison.

For the description, enter a detailed description that helps you understand what the tile is all about.

• In this case, it’s about comparing the number of visitors from two different months- May and June.

Data Section

The data section is where you choose the type of data you want to display on the comparison chart.

View (Select view)

A view is a predefined query modeled to simplify your reporting. What event/data do you want to display on the chart?

• Since we want to compare monthly visitors, the view would be events.

Clicking on open view details will open the dictionary where you can find what the view is all about and the associated values.

Value (Select a Measure)

What sub data or measure do you want to track/display on the chart? So from the dropdown of value, we’ll choose visitors.

Breakdown (Select a Breakdown Dimension):

Do you want to segment the event(s) to learn more about them? By default, the breakdown is by date. However, you can break down your tile by week, hour, and other dimensions like page URL, referrer, etc.

• Since we are monthly visitors, we can break down by ‘month’.

Date Range

What date range do you want to track on the comparison chart?

Set a start and finish date, so the date range is the time in between. You can either choose a predefined date range or enter a custom date range.

In a comparison chart, the date range is the current period you want to compare with another period.

• So since we are comparing visitors for May and June, our date range will be the whole of May. To do this, we will create a custom date range, covering May 1st to 31st.

1. Click on Date range.

2. Scroll to the bottom.

3. Select ‘Choose a date range.’

4. Click on the blank space by the right. The ‘date range selector’ will pop up.

5. Select the date range you want. In our case, the whole of May.

Compare

What period are you comparing against the data range?

Just like with the date range, you can either choose a predefined period or select a custom period.

In our case, we are comparing May and June. So we want to select the whole of June as the comparison range. To do this, we'll need to set a custom range.

1. Click on Compare.

2. Select Custom from the list.

3. Click on the blank bar by the right. The date selector will popup.

4. Select the date range you want to cover. In our case, we are comparing against visitors for June.

Filter Section

Is there any specific set of data you do not want to display? Do you want to only visualize specific data or data for a particular date?

• We want to cover every visitor for each month, so wouldn’t add a filter.

Read more about filters here.

Options Section

The Option section is where you select the type of line chart you want and how you want the data to be visualized. There are different options on this section.

* Limit

The data for each of the selected period may be too bulky. So you have the option to limit the maximum item that is displayed.

• We want to display everything. So we will choose Unlimited.

Look and feel

This section allows you to control the size of the line chart. There are several predefined sizes you can choose from including unset, small, default, default wide, wide small, wide and full width.

• We will choose default wide.

Final Outcome

Now we are all done. Just click Save to create the Comparison chart.

So here’s our chat comparing the visitors for May and June. From the visualization, you can see that we had way more visitors to our store in May compared to June.

Specifically, we had 124,097 visitors from 1st to 31st May, and 29,551 in from 1st to 30th June