Sankey Diagram -- Sorting variables

[ksherman]

I'm working with relatively simple data to create a Sankey diagram in SAS Visual Analytics. There are only two events and two time points (but many transaction IDs), so the ordering of the variables is very important for visual purposes. The two events are 'Top 1%' and 'Bottom 99%', yet the 'Bottom 99%' category always shows up on the top of the diagram.

I've looked at the User Guide and this Sankey Guide which are helpful but do not address this issue of sorting variables. Some guides say that if you right click on the variable, then there will be a 'Create Custom Sort Order' option, but that does not appear for me. I also tried adding a character at the beginning of 'Bottom 99%' so it was not in alphabetical order but that did not help and is not ideal anyway.

I would also like to add labels that show the values of the Sequence Order, in my case the years.

Any insight or suggestions? Thanks

Detailed system information for Visual Analytics Explorer:

Version: 7.3 Hotfix 04

Operating System: Windows 7
Browser: Chrome

[MikeJenista]

This is a late reply, but I wanted to make sure you got a complete response.

The features you desire are not supported on Sankey diagrams.  

Sankey uses the natural sort for the event.  Explorer does not have custom sorting, I think that is only for reports in Designer.  At VA 8.2 and higher on Viya, all these features have been merged so it would be possible.

The time variable is not shown because it is only used to determine the sequence of each transaction.  Two different transactions with the same sequence but differing times will be merged into the same path.  Therefore, the time is not necessarily unique for any particular event shown at a stage in the Sankey diagram.

You could try the vertical layout option; that would put 'Bottom 99%' on the left side of the graph and 'Top 1%' on the right side, so left-to-right you have an increasing order.