topic Re: Create KPI-number without a meter in SAS Visual Analytics

Create KPI-number without a meter

daviddavid — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 14:34:22 GMT

I want simple and clean KPI-numbers in a report (e.g. profit is "8%"), but cannot achieve it without also including a meter of some kind. In this sample report, Under "Promotion Effectiveness", I found what I'm looking for (picture attached). How do I replicate it?

http://www.sas.com/en_us/software/business-intelligence/visual-analytics/demo/retail-insights/sample-report.html

Feels like a supersimple feature, yet I've spent hours to figure out how do do it..

Grateful for input!!

//David

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

mike2468 — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 15:40:31 GMT

I believe that's a list table with a big typeface and all the chrome set to white.

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

PetriRoine — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 10:04:38 GMT

Hello @daviddavid,

KPI's are currently created using either Table or Gauge Horizontal Thermometer objects. Maybe Pie Charts also can be utilized for this. In the example you mentioned it seems to be the Horizontal Thermometer. Basically you use thermometer, but make the visual element disappear and rely only on the number.

Make the font big like 40. Then create a Display Rule f.ex. 0 -> 0.1 = WHITE to make the color bar always look white.

Best regards,

Petri Roine

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

Madelyn_SAS — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 15:29:57 GMT

I believe this sample will help you achieve your goal:

Sample 58288: Displaying the value of a single measure in a SAS® Visual Analytics report

http://support.sas.com/kb/58/288.html

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

daviddavid — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 12:11:03 GMT

Thanks for your reply Petri.

I'm quite surprised that such a simple and frequently used feature requires such an ugly hack in VA. Compared with e.g. Qlik Sense, this is not at all user-friendly.

Is there a proper solution on it's way?

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

varsha_sas — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 18:57:41 GMT

DavidDavid,

Yes! We will have a solution for this available in our 7.4 release next year.

Thanks,

Varsha

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

EWS — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 19:57:33 GMT

release 7.4 next year?!

What happend with release 8.1 and is there any list or overview which issues and improvement / bug fixes we can expect with this new release and maybe even more important when is it planned as we are already waiting for 8.1 since may 2016....

looking forward to get some information

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

bkeefe — Fri, 19 May 2017 19:03:58 GMT

So, essentially the answer is that there isn't a really good way to display a single number. The example shows how one can alter the appearance of a gauge to looke like a KPI that displays a single number, but SAS VA doesn't actually produce these types of visuals.

There are accessibility and workload implications for having to fudge these indicators to make them work, rather than having them work as a specific type of object. If one needs the high contrast view, one will see little white bars underneath the numbers.

Has anyone actually had any luck in producing something without having to fool the end user by setting a gauge's colour to the same colour as the background?

Re: Create KPI-number without a meter

Madelyn_SAS — Fri, 19 May 2017 19:15:03 GMT

In 7.4, there is no need to use a gauge. You can create a Text object and assign a measure to the Measure role.