Understanding standard visuals

Let's begin creating visualizations. We'll only cover a few visuals, providing you with the foundation to create some amazing reports and dashboards.

Getting quick information with cards

The first visual we'll create is a card; specifically, a single number card. It's probably the least exciting, but it certainly has its place in business intelligence. We'll create a visualization that displays the total balance of our Accounts Payable (AP). In our example, if there is only one number, putting in a chart or graph will not offer any additional information and, in fact, might make it harder to read quickly. Look at the following image. I've displayed the total AP balance using three different chart visuals: Column, Pie, and Line. None of these visuals are easy to read or make sense of. Using these would be having a chart for the sake of having a chart, not for providing valuable insight:

Let's create our first visual, the Card, by following these steps:

1. Open the...