KPI charts

KPI charts provide an at-a-glance view of key performance indicators (KPIs). They also work really well on mobile devices and are an ideal way of presenting information to users at all levels. CEOs and top-flight executives love them!

I like to divide analytics into the "What?" and the "Why?", First of all, what's going on? What's happening? What's your data telling you? Then, there's the "Why?"—why is something happening?

An example might be as follows:

• What? Sales are down this month compared to last month.
• Why? There was a dip in sales in one particular region.

KPI charts display the "What?" and allow drill-in to other visualizations to reveal the "Why?".

The KPI chart divides data up into individual KPIs that show a measure (value in data) divided and aggregated over a category. KPI charts are pretty special in Spotfire as they behave differently (in some ways) to most other charts—for good reason. Follow along with the example in the following section and all will become clear!