Who is this article for?

Users who want to create a treemap visualization

Reporting authorities, roles, and record access controls restrict data visibility.

A Treemap is a hierarchical visualization that displays data as nested rectangles. The top-level Category is represented by the largest rectangle, which is further divided into smaller rectangles, each corresponding to a sub-category up to three layers deep. These smaller rectangles are nested within their parent rectangles, and the area of each rectangle is proportional to the value it represents.

The visualization presents information graphically but is primarily designed for a user to engage interactively through a drill down of each category or sub-category.

Treemap Fields Tab

• Category Field: This region contains all non-numeric fields from the selected module (e.g., Title, Location, etc.). Select up to three fields to display in the Treemap. Use the up/down arrows to change the nesting of categories in the drill down.
  • Date Options: Dates are shown in charts using their actual values, but often the most useful display is to group items by week, month, quarter, or year. This can be done simply by putting the cursor over the field and clicking the three-dot menu to select the desired date format.
• Value Field: This region contains a default “Count” field along with all other numeric fields from the module (e.g., Number of Causes, Number of Injuries, etc.) Select a field to be used when plotting the relative size of each category.
  • Average, Mean, Standard Deviation, and More: Numeric values are summed by default, but other aggregation methods are also available such as average, mean, standard deviation, and more. To change the default numeric aggregation method put the cursor over the field and click the three-dot menu to select the desired aggregation.

Treemap Options Tab

Data labels adjust based on drill down. For example, when viewing the highest-level category, the labels will only show for that category even though smaller rectangles nested within that region visibly represent the next category’s proportional values. On drill-down, the second-level category labels will be visible.

• Data Labels: Displays labels overlaid on that category’s rectangle.
• Color by Point: Displays each sub-category using the visualization color palette.
• Color Palette: Pick from a variety of system color palettes.
• Starting Color: Pick the color that will be used for the first legend item of the chart. The palette will be applied using every other color starting from the selected color.
  • Reverse Color Order: Reverses the color order.

Example of a Treemap

The Treemap shown below is targeting the Inspection module, filtered to show only “Closed” records.

The Treemap categories are “Type,” “Performed by,” and “Location” by the value of “Count.”

The data labels are shown. The first screenshot displays the “Type” of inspections, the second screenshot shows the sub-category of “Performed By” within that type, and the third screenshot is of “Locations” that the inspector has surveyed.

At every level, the size of the boxes is proportionate to the total number of records shown in that category.