Sankey Chart

Introduction

This article looks at Astrato’s Sankey visualization.

• Building A Sankey Chart

  • Add a Sankey Chart

  • Define a Sankey Chart

    • Special Dimension Settings in a Sankey Chart

    • Data Limits

  • Style a Saneky Chart

    • Layout

    • Node Labels

    • Color

---

A Sankey Chart (alluvial diagram) data object consists of two or more dimensions and one measure.
The Saneky chart gives users a view of data flow between the different dimensions.
Sankey chart insights identify the significance of a path that connects all the dimensions in the chart.

Sankey chart common use cases are:

• Energy Flow Diagrams

• Material Flow Analysis

• Cost Allocation Diagrams

• Supply Chain and Logistics

• Website Traffic Flow

• Population Migration

• Carbon Footprint Analysis

📖 Read the blog for more use cases and customer stories

---

Building a Sankey

Add a Sankey Chart

The Sankey Chart can be found in the visualization tile. It is positioned in the bottom part of the visualization list.
​

Define a SankeyChart

• Add at least two dimensions and one measure.

  

• **Special Dimension Settings in the Sankey Chart

  **

  

  • Coloring: set the coloring method for an individual dimension.

    • Single - all nodes in the dimension will have the same color

    • Categorical - each node in the dimension will have a different color.

• Data Limits

  • By default, the chart displays the first 2000 rows of the query.
    When using more than 3 dimensions, it’s recommended to increase the limit of records to a number that covers all the rows.

  • Large number of rows in a charts might impact the performance of the chart and dashboard.

• Style a Sankey Chart

Layout

• Show null nodes: show or hide all null nodes across all dimensions.
  Compare the two images below and notice the difference in the second dimension when this setting is enabled versus disabled.
  ​

  

  ​

• Node margin: set the vertical margin between nodes in the dimensions.

Node Labels

• Show header label: show or hide the dimensions labels.
  ​

• Width: set the width of nodes across all dimensions; when nodes are wide enough, labels will be placed on the side of the nodes.
  ​

  

• Margin: set the horizontal margin between the links and the nodes.
  ​

• Node labels: enable or disable node labels.
  When enabled, select which information to display:

  • Dimension: only shows the dimension label

  • Flow: only shows the measure value.

  • Both: Showing dimension label and measure value.

• Placement Priority: by default, the node label is placed automatically in the best position to create a clear display of the chart; by disabling one of the options, you can force a particular place for the node label.

• Backdrop: set the background color for the node label.
  ​
  ​The image below shows a chart where node labels are set to:
  both, and placement priority is set beside, and the backdrop is light green.

  

Color

• Color - set the coloring method for the chart. There are two options:

  • Single: All nodes and links will be colored the same way.
    It’s recommended to use this method when wanting to highlight a particular part of the chart.

  • Per Dimension: A different color for each dimension.

  • * This setting is overriding the color setting of the dimensions

• Conditional coloring: define a coloring condition by either a measure or a dimension.

  • This setting overrides any coloring definition.

• Node color- when override is enabled, all nodes will be displayed with the defined color.

• Link color: set the color and gradient mode for links

  • Opacity: set the opacity of links.

  • Override: set the link color, overriding other settings.

  • Coloring method:
    ​

    

    • The left shows a gradient between the start and end dimension colors.

    • The middle option uses the start dimension color

    • The right option uses the end-dimension color
      ​
      ​
      ​