Adding visuals to Amazon QuickSight analyses - Amazon QuickSight
Fields as dimensions and measuresField limitationsSearching for fieldsAdding a visual

Adding visuals to Amazon QuickSight analyses

A visual is a graphical representation of your data. You can create a wide variety of visuals in an analysis, using different datasets and visual types.

After you have created a visual, you can modify it in a range of ways to customize it to your needs. Possible customizations include changing what fields map to visual elements, changing the visual type, sorting visual data, or applying a filter.

Amazon QuickSight supports up to 50 datasets in a single analysis, and up to 30 visuals in a single sheet, and a limit of 20 sheets per analysis.

You can create a visual in several ways. You can select the fields that you want and use AutoGraph to let Amazon QuickSight determine the most appropriate visual type. Or you can choose a specific visual type and choose fields to populate it. If you aren't sure what questions your data can answer for you, you can choose Suggested on the tool bar and choose a visual that Amazon QuickSight suggests. Suggested visuals are ones that we think are of interest, based on a preliminary examination of your data. For more information about AutoGraph, see Using AutoGraph.

You can add more visuals to the workspace by choosing Add, then Add visual. Visuals created after June 21, 2018, are smaller in size, fitting two on each row. You can resize the visuals and drag them to rearrange them.

To create a useful visual, it helps to know what question you are trying to answer as specifically as possible. It also helps to use the smallest dataset that can answer that question. Doing so helps you create simpler visuals that are easier to analyze.

Fields as dimensions and measures

In the Visuals pane, dimension fields have blue icons and measure fields have orange icons. Dimensions are text or date fields that can be items, like products. Or they can be attributes that are related to measures and can be used to partition them, like sales date for sales figures. Measures are numeric values that you use for measurement, comparison, and aggregation. You typically use a combination of dimension and measure fields to produce a visual, for example sales totals (a measure) by sales date (a dimension). For more information about the types of fields expected by the different visual types, see the specific visual type topics in the Visual types in Amazon QuickSight section. For more information about changing a field's measure or dimension setting, see Setting fields as a dimensions or measures.

Field limitations

You can only use one date field per visual. This limitation applies to all visual types.

You can't use the same field for more than one dimension field well or drop target on a visual. For more information about how expected field type is indicated by field wells and drop targets, see Using visual field controls.

Searching for fields

If you have a long field list in the Fields list pane, you can search to locate a specific field. To do so, choose the search icon at the top of the Data pane and then enter a search term into the search box. Any field whose name contains the search term is shown. Search is case-insensitive and wildcards aren't supported. Choose the cancel icon (X) to the right of the search box to return to viewing all fields.

Adding a visual

Use the following procedure to create a new visual.

To create a new visual

  1. Open the QuickSight console.

  2. On the Amazon QuickSight start page, choose the analysis that you want to add a visual to.

  3. On the analysis page, choose the dataset that you want to use from the dataset list at the top of the Data pane. For more information, see Adding a dataset to an analysis.

  4. Open the Visualize pane, choose Add, and then choose Add visual.

    A new, blank visual is created and receives focus.

  5. Use one of the following options:

    • Choose the fields to use from the Data pane at left. If the fields aren't visible, choose Visualize to display it. Amazon QuickSight creates the visual, using the visual type it determines is most compatible with the data you selected.

    • Choose the dropdown arrow next to the ADD button to choose a visual type. After the visual is created, choose the fields that you want to populate it.

      1. Choose the icon of a visual type from the Visual types pane.

        Grid of 28 icons representing various data visualization and analytics concepts.

        The field wells display the fields that are visualized.

        Field wells interface showing X axis, Value, Color, and Small Multiples options.

      2. From the Data pane, drag the fields that you want to use to the appropriate field wells. Typically, you want to use dimension or measure fields as indicated by the color of the target field well. If you choose to use a dimension field to populate a Value field well, the Count aggregate function is automatically applied to it to create a numeric value.

        Amazon QuickSight creates the visual using the visual type you selected.

    • Create a visual using a suggestion.

      On the tool bar, choose Suggested, then choose a suggested visual.