In many cases, visualizing a single metric in a chart conveys a powerful, focused message. But, there are times when you want to compare and consolidate multiple metrics into one visualization. That’s when you’ll turn to multi-metrics. Multi-metrics refer to scatter, bubble, and combination charts as well as any chart type to which you’ve added multiple metrics (excluding pie, donut, summary, ranked table, tree map, and waterfall charts, which can’t visualize more than one metric at a time).

Note: Visualizations that include multiple metrics are applicable to metrics on dashboards and in Explorer. 

This article includes the following:

• When do I need multi-metrics?
• Adding scatter, bubble, and combination charts to a dashboard
• Exploring scatter, bubble, and combination charts
• Adding other multi-metric charts to a dashboard
• Exploring other multi-metric charts

When do I need multi-metrics?

You typically need multi-metrics:

• When you want to display your data in a scatter, bubble, or combination chart.
• When you want to visualize and compare data for multiple metrics in a single chart (other than a scatter, bubble, or combination chart).

Adding scatter, bubble, and combination charts to a dashboard

Scatter, bubble, and combination charts, by nature, require more than one metric. The following instructions assume you’ve already added a metric to your dashboard. You will add other metrics to it when creating your multi-metric scatter, bubble, or combination chart.

Switching between scatter, bubble, and combination chart types: If you switch between multi-metric chart types, we will automatically assign which metric to use for each value in the new chart type based on the order they displayed in the previous chart’s properties. For example, if you have a scatter chart and switch it to a combination chart, the value for the X-Axis will be used for the Columns and the value for the Y-Axis will be used for the Line. You can manually switch metric values by clicking the button beside each metric.

Scatter charts

Scatter charts show relationships between two sets of data and use one metric for the X-Axis and one for the Y-Axis.

To add a scatter chart to a dashboard:

1. With the dashboard in Edit mode, click the metric you want to set up as a scatter chart.
2. In the Display tab, under Chart Type, select Scatter/Bubble. Under Style, select Scatter.
   
3. Click the Data tab and then click the button to choose the metrics you want to use for the X-Axis and the Y-Axis.
4. Optionally, apply filters for one or both axes by clicking the +Add filter button, as shown below.
   
5. Optionally, modify the Aggregation method for the added metrics by clicking their names and then making adjustments using the drop-down menu. (See below.)
   Note: This option is only available for custom metrics where the option to override default aggregation is enabled.
   
6. Continue by choosing other applicable settings for your metric.
   Learn more about choosing settings for individual metrics on a dashboard.

Bubble charts

Bubble charts show relationships between three sets of data. This chart type uses one metric for the X-Axis, one for the Y-Axis, and one that displays as different sized bubbles (the larger the bubble, the higher the numeric value).

To add a bubble chart to a dashboard:

1. With the dashboard in Edit mode, click the metric you want to set up as a bubble chart.
2. In the Display tab, under Chart Type, select Scatter/Bubble. Under Style, select Bubble.
3. Click the Data tab and then click the button to choose the metrics you want to use for the X-Axis, Y-Axis, and Size.
   
4. Optionally, apply filters for the X-Axis, Y-Axis, and Size by clicking the +Add filter button, as shown below.
   
5. Optionally, modify the Aggregation method for the added metrics by clicking their names and then making adjustments in the drop-down menu.
   Note: This option is only available for custom metrics where the option to override default aggregation is enabled.
6. Continue by choosing other applicable settings for your metric.
   Learn more about choosing settings for individual metrics on a dashboard.

Combination charts

Combination charts amalgamate bar and line chart types. They make it easier to compare two sets of data that have dissimilar numeric value ranges or data format types. For example, one metric may be measured in millions of dollars and the other may be measured as percentage values. In this chart, one metric displays as the columns and the other metric displays as the line.

To add a combination chart to a dashboard:

1. With the dashboard in Edit mode, click Insert > Metrics.
2. On the Select metrics page, click the + button beside each metric you want to add to the combination chart. Click Done.
3. In the Display tab, under Chart Type, select Combination.
   
4. Click the Data tab.
5. Optionally, apply filters for the columns or the line by clicking the +Add filter button, as shown below.
   
6. Optionally, modify the Aggregation method for the added metrics by clicking their names and then making adjustments in the drop-down menu.
   Note: This option is only available for custom metrics where the option to override default aggregation is enabled.
7. Continue by choosing other applicable settings for your metric.
   Learn more about choosing settings for individual metrics on a dashboard.

Exploring scatter, bubble, and combination charts

Explorer empowers you to analyze and learn from your metric data in a fluid, investigative way. The customizations you make while exploring don’t impact the underlying metric or its data and are only visible to you. You can clear your settings and start over as often as you like. Your most recent changes are remembered and will display the next time you open Explorer. When you find something interesting or hit on the perfect display settings, you can save the explored metric to a dashboard for further self-study and tracking or to share with your team for mutual discussion and discovery.

Note: If you want to edit a multi-metric and change the default version of it for everyone, you can do that by opening the metric from your list of metrics or from a metric dashboard. Learn more about editing metrics.

This section describes exploration settings that are unique to multi-metrics. Go here if you want to learn more about Explorer.

How do I explore scatter, bubble, and combination charts?

You begin by adding metrics in Explorer. You can either add metrics that are already in your account (either manually or with PowerMetrics AI) or add new metrics. After adding metrics, you’ll visualize them as a scatter, bubble, or combination chart.

We recommend adding metrics in the order in which you want them to display (however, you can always change their order after adding them by clicking the 3-dot menu for each tile and selecting Move right or Move left).

For a scatter or bubble chart, the 1st metric you add will be assigned to the X-Axis, the 2nd metric you add will be assigned to the Y-Axis, and the 3rd metric you add will be assigned to the bubble size.

Combination charts amalgamate bar and line chart types. The 1st metric you add will display as columns and the 2nd metric you add will display as a line.

Note: If desired, you can alternatively add scatter, bubble, or combination charts to a dashboard and then open them in Explorer from there by clicking the Explore metrics button. (See below.)

To add metrics to Explorer:

1. Click in the left navigation sidebar.
2. If you haven’t added any metrics yet to Explorer, click the button.
   If you’ve already added some metrics to Explorer and want to add more, click the +Add metric button that displays beside the already added metrics. (See below.)
   
3. On the Select metrics page, optionally, use the Search (enter the metric name), Service, and Display filters to narrow down your list of available metrics.
4. Click the button for each existing metric you want to explore.
5. You can also create new metrics for exploration on this page by clicking the button.
6. When you’re finished selecting metrics, click Done.
7. Now that you’ve added metrics, in the right sidebar, under Chart Type, select Scatter / Bubble (and under Style, select either Scatter or Bubble) or Combination.
   The visualization in Explorer will automatically update to align with the chosen chart type and style.
8. Click the 3-dot menu for each metric to access various options.
9. To modify the aggregation method, click Aggregation and use the drop-down to select a different aggregation method. Note: This option is only available for metrics where the option to override default aggregation is enabled.
10. To apply filters, click Filter and use the drop-down to select items to include or exclude.
11. To change the order of metrics in the chart, click the 3-dot menu for the metric tile and select Move right or Move left.
    
12. To substitute and add a different metric to the visualization, click the 3-dot menu for the metric tile and select Change metric.
13. To download a CSV file version of the visualization, click the Download CSV button, located in the top-right of the window.
14. To save the visualization, click Add to dashboard, located in the top-right of the window.
15. To remove metrics and clear your settings, click the Reset Explorer button, located in the top-right of the window.

Adding other multi-metric charts to a dashboard

Most of our chart types support adding multiple metrics to a single visualization. (The exceptions are: pie, donut, summary, ranked table, tree map, and waterfall charts.)

The primary purpose of a multi-metric is to compare data within a single visualization. Keep this in mind when choosing which metrics to combine and which aggregation methods to apply. For example, if a metric measures large monetary values (for example, millions of dollars) a comparison to a metric measuring small monetary values (for example, hundreds of dollars) would not make an effective comparison - the numeric range is too large to adequately see both sets of data at the same time within a single visualization. In such cases, try a combination chart instead.

Notes:

• Some metric chart types don’t support multi-metrics. If you add multiple metrics to a visualization that supports them and then change the chart type to one that doesn’t support them, data for the first metric listed in the “Data” tab will display.
• You can display two Y-Axes if your multiple metric includes a mix of percentage and non-percentage values. Percentage values are assigned to one Y-Axis and non-percentage values to the other Y-Axis. This applies to line charts and clustered (non-stacked) bar and column charts.

You can watch this video for a quick demonstration on creating a multi-metric:

How do I add other multi-metric charts to a dashboard?

First you need to add a single metric to your dashboard. If you’re not sure how to do that, go here for detailed instructions. Once you have a chart on your dashboard that includes a single metric, you can add more metrics to it.

To add other multi-metric charts to a dashboard:

1. With the dashboard in Edit mode, click Insert > Metrics.
2. On the Select metrics page, click the + button beside the first metric to use for your multi-metric chart. Click Done.
3. Click the Data tab.
4. Click the button beside Metrics (see below).
   
5. In the Select metrics window, click the button beside each metric you want to add to your chart.
   You can add up to 4 metrics to a single metric chart (for a total of 5 metrics).
6. Click Done.
   Note that the default name applied to your multi-metric includes the name of each metric you added, in the order you added them, and in the order in which they display in your chart. You can modify the name later if desired.
7. Optionally, apply filters on a per-metric basis by clicking the +Add filter button, as shown below.
   
8. Optionally, modify the Aggregation method for the added metrics by clicking their names and then making adjustments in the drop-down menu (see below).
   Note: This option is only available for custom metrics where the option to override default aggregation is enabled.
   
9. Click Save (to save the changes to the metric and the dashboard).

Exploring other multi-metric charts

The Explorer enables you to add up to 5 metrics to a single, exploratory visualization. Go here for everything you need to know about exploring other multi-metric charts.