Hexagon Progress Bars
Note: This is just to explore and try to do something different and out of the box. It is a request from my side to always look at best practices for data visualizations before deploying this into production.
We will create something as shown below
Load Sample Superstore data. Create a Bar Chart by adding Region and Sales to Rows and Columns respectively.
Creating the Gauge End Points
The calculation for the start of my gauge should be equal to zero, so the calculation would be
Bottom
MIN(0)
The calculation for the end of my gauge should be equal to one, so the calculation would be
Top
MIN(1)
Time to build the visualization
Drag Measure Values to Columns. Drag Measure Names to filter. From Measure Names, Choose Top, Bottom, and Sales. It should look as shown below.
Right Click on Sales -> Quick Table Calculation -> Percent of Total
Change the Mark type to Bar. Drag Measure Names to Color. Click on Analysis -> Stack Marks -> Off
Choose Colors as shown below
It should look as shown below
This forms the base of our hexagon visualization. Then Ctrl + drag Measure Values on Columns. Choose the second Mark as Shape
Drag Measure Names to Shape. From the shapes, choose Diamond filled. Do a Dual Axis with both Measure Values. Synchronize the axes. Adjust the size as per taste. It should look as shown below
Hold Ctrl and drag % of Sales from the Measure Values group to Detail in the Shape Card. A special technique is needed for the text labeling. If we add to text, It will look as shown below
We don’t want to display this. We want the percentage display at the end of the blue hexagon only. The special technique will be to use Reference Line.
Drag a Reference Line at Per Cell Level. Edit the Reference Line as shown below
Do the formatting and placement by formatting the Reference line.
Choose Alignment as Middle Center. Remove the Shading. If it goes well, you should see the following
Clean the tooltips.
Remove Borders
Remove Gridlines
Thanks for reading
Vignesh Suresh
