Trying to create a waterfall chart with the following data:
Year Amounts Breakdown
2018 10000 Start
2018 2000 Add
2018 -1000 Drop
2019 3000 Add
2019 -1000 Drop
2020 4000 Add
2020 -2000 Drop```
but I don't seem to be able to get a coherent visual. Do I need to reorganize my data?
What is the breakdown in this instance?
Here's what I get with that data:
Hi @momnotmom
sadly we can see the screenshot.
BR
What do you expect. Seems the input data are not matching the visual data?
Exactly.
For 2018 I would expect to see 10000
For add next to it, a 2000 increase
For Drop next to that a 1000 decrease
and so on.
Something like this would be ideal:
So the question is am I presenting the data incorrectly, or am I constructing the chart incorrectly?
Or does the chart simply not work?
The documentation is minimal; this seems like it should be so simple, but this result doesn’t even come close to matching the data. Nowhere do I specify a 10000 decrease in the data. How does it get that?
I am really confused.
Other packages like Power Bi it is very clear.
Can anyone provide a very simple example of a periodic time period representation with an amount at the start of the period in a waterfall chart, with the dataset and field wells clearly delineated? What is the group column and what ids the breakdown column in the data? Thank you.
Hi @momnotmom
any update on your side?
BR
Thanks for sharing this. I’m struggling with the same thing. With other tools (Excel, Power BI, Tableau) this is simple. I would very much appreciate it if someone would simply show exactly how to create the chart in the QuickSight Documentation for waterfall charts. I can’t seem to recreate it for the exact reason described here. QuickSight’s waterfall chart when used with a breakdown does not actaully keep a running sum.
@momnotmom - I was able to exactly recreate the screenshot from the official QuickSight documentation in the user guide about creating waterfalls. It has a similar effect to the one you were trying to achieve. The trick for me was simply how I structured the data. In my original data set I assumed that the Value column was for change events and it looks like you did the same. That is not correct. The Value column itself in the raw data set needs to be a running total. I’ve attached a screenshot of the dataset and of the output. So for example, if the 2011 Value with the Breakdown of EMEA is 100,000 the 2012 Value with the Breakdown of EMEA needs to be the RUNNING TOTAL not the change. So, for example, if I wanted my Waterfall chart to show a change of 410,000 I’d put 510,000 as the 2012 Value with Breakdown of EMEA. The chart itself will calculate the difference.
By the way if any QuickSight admin reads this please have the documentation updated! This was incredibly confusing! This page here Using waterfall charts - Amazon QuickSight literally says almost nothing about how to produce this chart. It just shows a picture and says nothing at all about how the data should be structured and what wells the data should go into etc. It comes across as very unprofessional documentation. Please have it updated with enough detail to actually understand how to create one. I wasted about 4 hours trying several different data structures until I finally got it right. Thanks.
