Using Histograms

Use a histogram chart to display the distribution of continuous numerical values in your data.

Histogram

To create a histogram, you use one measure. A new histogram initially displays 10 bins across the x-axis. The bins appear as bars on the chart and you can customize them to suit your data. The y-axis displays the absolute count of the values in each bin.

Make sure that you adjust the format settings so that you have a clearly identifiable shape. If your data contains outliers, you usually notice one or more values off to the side of the x-axis.

  1. Click Dashboards tab, the Dashboards tab.
  2. Click Dashboard Designer, in the bottom-left corner.
  3. On the Analyses dialog, click New analysis or click Options button, the Options button, next to an existing analysis and select Edit.
  4. On the analysis page, click , the Add visual button, on the toolbar.
    Analysis page - Create a visual
  5. Click the Histogram icon.
    Histogram icon
  6. Add data to the visual by dragging a measure from the Data panel to the Value field well in the Visuals panel.

    The x-axis displays 10 bins by default, representing the intervals in the measure that you added, such as 1–10, 10–20, 20–30, and so on. When you hover over the bins, you see the interval that they represent. A square bracket next to a number indicates that the number is included, while a parenthesis indicates that the number is excluded. For example, in the interval [1, 10), the number 1 is included in the interval and the number 10 is excluded.

    The y-axis displays the absolute count of individual values in each bin. The sum of all bins equals exactly 100% of the values in the selected data.

  7. Customize the appearance of the visual in the Properties panel on the right.
    1. Under Display Settings, format the title and subtitle.
      For more information, see Formatting Titles and Subtitles in Visuals.
    2. Under Histogram, format the bins either by count or width and enter the starting value.
      • To use the bin count for the format, select Bin count and enter the number of bins to display on the x-axis.
      • To use the bin width for the format, select Bin width and enter the width, or length, of each interval. This setting controls the number of items or events to include in each bin. For example, if your data is in minutes, you can enter 10 to show 10-minute intervals.
      • Under Bins start at, enter the starting value for the bins.
    3. Under X-axis and Y-axis, configure the axes, the grid lines, and the range and scale.
      • Under X-axis, enter the maximum number of bins in the Number of data points to show field.
      • Under Y-axis, enable the Logarithmic Scale option to avoid misleading results. For example, if the shape is skewed so far to the right that you cannot interpret it properly, you can apply a logarithmic scale to reduce the skew.

      For information on the other available settings, see Formatting Axes and Grid Lines in Visuals and Configuring Range and Scale in Visuals.

    4. Under Data labels, format the labels.
      For more information, see Formatting Data Labels in Visuals.
Parent topic: Creating Visuals