The Sankey Diagram visualizes the flow of a measure over multiple dimensions. Start visualizing the flow of money through your organizations departments or see what paths your visitors enjoy on your website. You can create your first Sankey Diagram in under a minute…

The ShowMeMore extension can connect to an existing visualization (or table) in your dashboard to retrieve the data. Best practice and performance wise however we recommend creating a dedicated datasheet for the Sankey diagram. To create a dedicated datasheet we recommend dropping all dimensions and measures you want to use in your Sankey Diagram on the details of the marks pane. This will enable the best performance and allows dashboard actions to act on this dedicated Sankey datasheet. See screenshot showing how our demo workbook has been set up. For tips and advice check out our BLOG.

You do need to add the datasheet to your dashboard since the ShowMeMore extension is a Dashboard Object that retrieves data from another sheet in the dashboard. Once you added the blue squared datasheet to your dashboard you can hide it by making it a floating container and resizing the container to 1×1 pixel. The datasheet has to remain on the dashboard!

Once you start configuring ShowMeMore, the extension automatically scans the dashboard for available sheets. Make sure you added your datasheet to the dashboard before opening the configuration screen. Don’t panic If you forgot to add the datasheet to the dashboard. Just close the configuration, add the datasheet to your dashboard and start the configuration again. Select the worksheet you want to retrieve data from (preferably your blue squared datasheet). This worksheet will be the input for the visualization you pick in the next step.

Customize Sankey Diagram

Choose the dimensions you wish to show in your Sankey Diagram. Use the dropdown menu to select the dimensions from your datasheet that you want to be present as levels in your Sankey Diagram. These levels will be visualized in the Sankey diagram from the left to the right. Use the ‘Add’ button to add another level. Assign the measure you want to use in the Sankey by clicking on the measure dropdown menu.

Tooltips

Format your link and node tooltip. Use the short codes and/or free text. You will see the list of available short codes you can use. How they are displayed in the box will be how you will see them in your tooltip.

Labels

Number format

Format your measure to a decimal or a percentage using the dropdown menu. Enter the amount of decimal spaces shown under ‘decimals’. Add a ‘Prefix’ and/or a ‘Suffix’ in the text boxes. A prefix will go before the word and the suffix after. A prefix for example could add a currency ‘$’ and a Suffix could add a ‘%’.

Display Units (Decimal only)

Within your data there could be large values. Here you can format using separators. Use the dropdown menu to display numerical units. Example: 6,744 – 6.74K. Use the tick box to include thousands separators. Example: 1234 – 1,234.

Font Size

Use the dropdown menu to change the size of the font from 50% – 150%. Changing the font size will affect all fonts within your Sankey Diagram.

Font Family

Use the dropdown menu to change the font best to suit your dashboard.

Font Color

Clicking on the circle shapes will open the color palette. Nodes, Links and Headers can all be changed separately using their own palette.

Label Editing

Format what is shown on your nodes, to and from them. You may add free text as well as using short codes from your data (Example: ) For extra formatting try using HTML like H1, IMG tags or Bold. Bold a word and reduce text sizing is available Node Label

Within the text box, enter what you wish to be displayed within your node labels. Format to get the best look for your Sankey Diagram. See above for tips.

From Link Label

Next to each of your node labels, you will be able to display a label which can be entered within the text box. An example would to show the percentage of target. Example.

To Link Label

Have a label shown before your node labels. This could be useful to show a percent of your target. Use the text box to enter your information and see animated gif on how this will look when displayed.

Dashboard Actions

Dashboard actions are available within your Sankey Diagram! Use the ‘New Action’ to begin setting up the dashboard action.

Action type

Set up your dashboard action using a filter or a parameter from the dropdown menu. With the filter option you can trigger a dashboard action that filters on other sheets in your dashboard. A parameter action will change the value of a parameter to the node or link you selected in the Sankey. Very powerful features to control interactivity and usability!

Trigger On

Decide whether to trigger the dashboard action when you click on a node or a link from your Sankey Diagram.

Target Sheet

Here you can select the sheet(s) you want to be the target of your dashboard action. Beware that you do not set your datasheet as a target sheet for the actions otherwise it will be hard to reset your filters!

Deselecting will

This powerful feature will give you control of your configured dashboard action. Use the dropdown to decide what you wish to happen once you’ve deselected your mark(s) in the Sankey. You can choose to show all data again in the target sheet(s), show no data at all or leave the filter as it was.

Refresh

Warning! We are continuously looking to improve our solutions, clicking refresh will give you the latest release with all the new features. Your Sankey Diagram will reset to its initial factory settings including color palette, measures and columns.  This is option will let you re-configure your extension from scratch.

Color

Click the ‘Use new color formatting’ checkbox to use the new color options. This will allow you to color your dimensions, individually on a named basis. When not using the new color formatting option, the Mark Colors will be colored by sorting order. This will allow you to customize your dashboard greatly and improve your user experience!

Background color

Use the circle to open the color palette to change the background color of your Sankey Diagram. Extension objects can not be transparent in Tableau so to blend in your Sankey Diagram you are able to set your background color to match the design of your entire dashboard.

Color By

Same values have the same colors

Where your dataset shows the same value, your Sankey Diagram will display the same color. This can be helpful to show exact matches, within different categories. When choosing this you will be presented with all the dimension members available, click on each palette to edit.

All values have unique colors

Each value will have it’s own unique color. Ideal if you wish to differentiate all measures for example. When selecting you will be presented with the values that are available, click on each palette to edit.   

Color by dimension

This will only be available when clicking on ’Color by dimension’. All nodes and links will be colored by dimension. This would be ideal to show the flow from one dimension to the next. When clicking you will be presented with the categories available for you to then change the colors of your dimensions.

Color Links By

Here you can decide how you would like the links from your nodes to be colored by.

Input – Output (Gradient)

Links will show a gradient from input color (source node) to output color (target node).

Input

Links will be colored with the input nodes color.

Output

Links will be colored with the output nodes color.

No Color

No coloring on any link, links will be shown as grey.

Select colors for dimensions: (New color formatting only)

Click on the color palette that’s alongside your chosen dimensions to choose their color. The new coloring format will improve your ease of use by seeing which dimension is represented by which color.

Format

Node & Link Offset

If your Sankey Diagram has many nodes, there may not always be space for labels to be shown within each node/link. Change the offset to get the best look for your viz. 

Node Width

Increase or decrease the width of your nodes using the slider. This will also change the size and shape of your links to fit the view. If you decided to show labels in your Sankey diagram this is the option to control the width to fit your content.

Vertical Node Padding

Increase and decrease the vertical padding (whitespace between the nodes) using the slider. This will give the same space between each node (vertically). You can design your Sankey with the optimal whitespace you want.

Horizontal Node Padding

Increase and decrease the horizontal padding (whitespace between the nodes and the links) using the slider. This will give the same space between each node and the link horizontally.

Link Opacity

Increase and decrease the link opacity (transparency) using the slider. 100 will give full opacity (zero transparency). Transparency is a great feature to visualize overlapping links. Intensity and color blending indicates the overlap of links so your flows remain visible and understandable for the end user.

Node Opacity

Increase and decrease the node opacity using the slider. 100 will give full opacity (zero transparency).

Layout Mode

Change the layout of your nodes by choosing one of the 4 layout options.

Node Border

Hit ‘Enabled’ to give all your nodes a border to make them more stand out with the background.

Labels position

Decide the position or your nodes label being inside or outside your node.

Hide Nulls

Have the ability to hide all nulls by hitting ‘disabled’. The image is showing how you can have flows from column 1 to column 4 with nulls in columns 2 & 3. Nodes can also start and end on different levels.

Sort Nodes by

Arrange the order of the nodes by name & value either ascending or descending. Name order can be very useful to have an easy to read Sankey Diagram, sorting by value may give you clearer insight to your measures. Automatic will use Sankey Diagrams internal algorithm which calculates the optimal order or nodes with the least link overlaps.

Sort Links by

Arrange the links by value. High to low or low to high. Ideal if you wish to show where most of your sales are going and to which category. Automatic will use Sankey Diagrams internal algorithm which calculates the optimal order or nodes with the least link overlaps.  

Enable Header

Have the option show the names of the levels above the Sankey Diagram. See animated gif for an example of how it will look. 

Scale

Use the scale scroll bar when you have larger and more complex tables. This will reduce sizing of all nodes to allow your complex Sankey Diagram to fit to your dashboard.

Legend

To have a legend in your Sankey Diagram, tick the ‘Show legend’ button. When having a large selection of dimensions, it may be of benefit to use a color legend to display.

Legend Type

Choose between a Color legend to elaborate on the used colors or a Scale legend to visualize the size of nodes and links. Color legends will show the configured dimension alongside their color. The scale legend shows a reference bar with a specific value for referential purposes.  

Legend Position

Choose where your legend will be. Left, Right, Top(color only) & Bottom (color only). Every Sankey Diagram could be different, change to give your dashboard the best look. This way you can match the Sankey diagram to the rest of your dashboard.

Legend order (Scale only)

Have the scale showing from High – Low or Low – high

Color (Scale only)

Use the circle to open the color pallet to change your scale color.

Number of columns

Decide how many columns the color legend should show in your view. This will help with the look of your Sankey Diagram.

Horizontal shift

Use the slider to adjust the position horizontally of your Legend. Use this to get your legend in the perfect position.

Vertical shift

Use the slider to adjust the position vertically. This could allow you to have more text shown in your view.  

Other

Export your visualization as a SVG. This will open a prompt box explaining how to export.

Tutorial

Click on this link for a tutorial on how to use the Sankey Diagram