Visualize Data with Edilitics | Features & Steps#

The Visualize module in Edilitics enables enterprises to transform raw data into compelling, interactive dashboards that drive actionable insights. This guide provides a detailed overview of the prerequisites, step-by-step instructions, and advanced features for configuring a visualization dashboard, ensuring a seamless and impactful data visualization experience.

Steps to Configure a Visualization Dashboard#

Access the Visualize Module#

Navigate to the "Visualize" section within the Edilitics platform's sidebar. This module serves as the entry point for creating dynamic and insightful dashboards.

Initiate a New Visualization Workflow#

Click the “New Visualization” button to begin a new workflow. This marks the initiation of your dashboard project, where you will select data sources and design your visualizations.

Select the Data Source#

• Supported Data Sources

  Users can connect to one or more integrated databases and add additional sources as needed during dashboard creation. While a single chart is restricted to data from one table within one database, dashboards can aggregate insights by combining multiple charts from different tables and databases, ensuring a robust multi-source analysis.

• Data Type Handling

  Columns with unsupported data types (e.g., dict, struct, object, JSON) are automatically excluded from visualization. The remaining columns are categorized into Categorical and Numerical fields for streamlined selection and processing.

• Theme Setting

  Visualizations will automatically align with the Edilitics application theme (Light or Dark mode), ensuring consistency with your preferred user interface settings.

Generate AI-Powered Chart Suggestions#

Once a table is selected, users can opt for AI-powered chart recommendations to accelerate visualization creation. If enabled, the system generates 10 tailored chart suggestions, each specifying:

• Recommended chart type
• Columns and rows to use
• Optimal aggregations
• A rationale explaining the chart’s relevance

Users can select multiple suggestions and generate all chosen charts with a single click.

Security & Privacy

Chart suggestions are powered by an advanced third-party AI model that processes only metadata such as column names, data types, and summary statistics. No actual data is shared, ensuring complete data security and privacy compliance.

User Responsibility & Disclaimer

• Users should review and validate AI-generated charts before making data-driven decisions.

• Edilitics disclaims liability for any losses, misinterpretations, or inaccuracies arising from AI-generated visualizations.

• Edilitics may use anonymized insights from generated outputs to enhance its AI models, in accordance with its Terms of Use.

Add Data to the Chart#

Utilize the drag-and-drop functionality to add desired columns to the chart area, or use the "+" sign next to the column name. The default chart type is a Bar Chart, but this can be changed via the Charts tab in the left panel.

Enhance and Customize Visualizations#

Select Aggregation#

Edilitics provides a comprehensive set of aggregation functions tailored for categorical, datetime, and numerical fields, ensuring optimal data synthesis and analysis.

Categorical Fields

• Group By – Default aggregation method for categorical fields.
• Count – Returns the total number of occurrences of each category.
• Count Distinct – Counts the number of unique occurrences within each category.

Datetime, Timestamp, and Date & Time Fields

• Group By (All values) – Default aggregation method, treating each timestamp as a unique value.
• Count – Counts the number of occurrences for each timestamp.
• Count Distinct – Counts the number of unique timestamps in the dataset.

Users can perform aggregations on specific time components, which will extract and group data based on the selected attribute.
Here’s a detailed explanation of what is returned or extracted when users apply these aggregation functions:

Time Components & Extracted Values

• Year

  Extracts the year (YYYY) from each timestamp.
  Example: 2023, 2024, 2025

• Quarter

  Extracts the quarter (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) of the year based on the timestamp.
  Example: Q1 (Jan-Mar), Q2 (Apr-Jun), Q3 (Jul-Sep), Q4 (Oct-Dec)

• Month

  Extracts the month (1-12 or January-December) from each timestamp.
  Example: January, February, March or 1, 2, 3

• Week Number

  Extracts the week number (1-52) of the year.
  Example: Week 1, Week 15, Week 52

• Weekend

  Identifies whether a date falls on a weekend (Saturday/Sunday) or a weekday (Monday-Friday).
  Example: Weekend (True), Weekday (False)

• Weekday

  Extracts the day of the week (Monday-Sunday or 0-6, where 0=Sunday).
  Example: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or 0, 1, 2

• Date

  Extracts the full date (YYYY-MM-DD) without time components.
  Example: 2024-01-15, 2024-07-20

• Day

  Extracts the day of the month (1-31) from the timestamp.
  Example: 1, 15, 30

• Time

  Extracts the full time (HH:MM:SS) from the timestamp without the date.
  Example: 14:30:15, 23:59:59

• Hour

  Extracts the hour (0-23) from the timestamp.
  Example: 0 (midnight), 12 (noon), 23 (11 PM)

• Minute

  Extracts the minute (0-59) from the timestamp.
  Example: 00, 15, 30, 45

• Second

  Extracts the second (0-59) from the timestamp.
  Example: 00, 30, 59

This fine-grained time-based aggregation enables users to perform time series analysis, trend detection, and operational reporting effectively.

Numerical Fields

• Sum – Default aggregation method, computes the total sum.
• Count – Counts the number of numerical values.
• Count Distinct – Counts the number of unique numerical values.
• Min – Returns the smallest value.
• Max – Returns the largest value.
• Mean (Average) – Computes the arithmetic mean of the values.
• Median – Identifies the middle value in the sorted dataset.
• Standard Deviation – Measures data dispersion from the mean.
• Variance – Measures the spread of data points.
• Percentile – Calculates specific percentiles (5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th).

This robust set of aggregation functions allows users to perform highly granular and customized data transformations, ensuring enhanced analytical flexibility.

Format the Chart#

Access the Format tab to customize your chart. Edilitics offers a comprehensive set of formatting options, allowing users to fine-tune visualizations for clarity, aesthetics, and alignment with corporate branding.

Users have granular control over various elements, including:

• Color Schemes – Adjust colors to enhance readability and match branding guidelines.
• Axis Labels – Customize axis titles, orientation, and formatting.
• Font Styles & Font Colors – Modify font type, size, and color to improve text visibility.
• Tooltips – Enable interactive tooltips to display additional data insights on hover.
• Legends – Adjust legend positioning, visibility, and layout for clear data interpretation.
• Grid Lines – Control the presence and style of grid lines to enhance chart readability.
• Chart-Specific Customization – Configure unique settings based on the selected chart type (e.g., bar width for bar charts, line thickness for line charts, data point markers for scatter plots).

By leveraging these advanced formatting capabilities, users can ensure their dashboards are both visually compelling and functionally insightful.

Apply Filters#

Edilitics provides flexible filtering options to optimize data exploration and dashboard interactivity. Filters can be applied at different stages to enhance performance and user control.

Pre-Filters (Before Chart Creation)

Pre-filters are applied before any chart is created and define the dataset that will be used for visualization. Edilitics first applies the pre-filter, extracts only the required data from the user’s database, and then processes it, ensuring optimized performance.

• Global Pre-Filters

  Apply to all charts created in the dashboard, ensuring a consistent dataset across visualizations.

• Sheet-Specific Pre-Filters

  Apply only to the first chart created in a specific sheet. Subsequent charts on the same sheet will not inherit the filter unless manually applied.

Benefits of Pre-Filters:

• Optimized Query Performance

  Since data is filtered before extraction, only relevant records are retrieved, reducing the database query load.

• Lower Query Costs

  Limits the amount of data extracted, preventing unnecessary queries on large datasets and reducing processing costs.

• Faster Dashboard Rendering

  By working with a filtered subset of data upfront, charts load significantly faster compared to post-filtering.

Post-Filters (After Chart Creation)

Post-filters are applied after a chart has been created, allowing users to refine visualizations without modifying the dataset at the query level.

• Can be applied at the chart level or across multiple charts in a dashboard.
• Useful for interactive analysis, where users can filter displayed data without rerunning the query.

Limitations Compared to Pre-Filters:

• Higher Query Costs

  Since Edilitics extracts the entire dataset for the selected column(s) before applying post-filters, unnecessary data may be retrieved from the source, increasing costs.

• Slower Dashboard Rendering

  Unlike pre-filters, which limit the data extracted, post-filters operate on a full dataset, making charts load slower.

• Inefficient for Large Datasets

  When working with big data, post-filters do not reduce query size, leading to longer processing times.

Best Practice: Use pre-filters whenever possible to optimize performance, reduce query load, and ensure a faster, more efficient dashboard experience. Post-filters should be used only for on-the-fly adjustments rather than primary data selection.

Show Filters for Interactive Dashboards

Show filters allow filters to be displayed on the final dashboard, enabling interactive analysis.

• Once enabled, viewers can modify and adjust filters in real-time within the saved dashboard.
• If the dashboard is shared, the filters remain accessible to all consumers, allowing them to create custom views based on their needs.
• Filters persist across sessions, ensuring a dynamic, user-driven experience without altering the original dataset.

Example Use Cases:

• A sales dashboard with "Region" as a Show Filter allows users to switch between different regions without modifying the dataset.
• A time-period filter enables viewers to analyze trends over custom date ranges interactively.

Managing Filters

Users have complete control over filter configuration:

• Name Filters

  Assign meaningful names for easy identification and organization.

• Edit Filters During Creation

  Modify filter parameters while setting up the dashboard.

• Delete Filters

  Remove filters if they are no longer needed.

By combining Pre-Filters, Post-Filters, and Show Filters, Edilitics enables users to optimize performance, improve interactivity, and refine data exploration, ensuring a seamless analytical experience.

Create Additional Sheets#

Each sheet in Edilitics represents a single chart and is created using one table from one data source. Users can add multiple sheets, with each sheet pulling data from different tables or different databases.

To add a new sheet, click New Sheet and follow the steps for data selection, visualization setup, and formatting.

Key Features of Sheets:

• One chart per sheet – A sheet is dedicated to a single visualization, ensuring clarity and focus.
• Different data sources – Each sheet can be based on a different table from a different database, allowing flexibility in multi-source analysis.
• Independent formatting – Users can configure chart settings, color schemes, fonts, axis labels, and other properties separately for each sheet, optimizing presentation based on chart type.

View and Format the Dashboard#

The dashboard is a collection of all sheets within a visualization workflow. After creating multiple sheets, users can view the full dashboard, which consolidates all visualizations into a single interactive space.

Users can:

• Navigate between sheets to explore different visualizations.
• Rearrange sheets to structure the dashboard logically.
• Ensure consistency by applying dashboard-wide themes while maintaining sheet-level customization.

Add Images and Notes#

Users can enhance the dashboard by adding supplementary images and notes to provide additional context:

• Images – Upload custom graphics, company logos, or supporting visuals to enhance interpretation.
• Notes – Add textual descriptions or key takeaways to help viewers understand the data insights.

This ensures the dashboard remains self-explanatory, insightful, and presentation-ready.

Save and Schedule Dashboard Updates#

Once all sheets are created and configured, users must save the dashboard to preserve their visualizations for future access. As part of this process, users can also configure update schedules to control how frequently the dashboard refreshes with new data.

Steps to Save a Dashboard:

• Define a Dashboard Title – Assign a meaningful name for easy identification.
• Add a Description – Provide a brief summary of the dashboard’s purpose and key insights.
• Set Update Preferences – Choose how the dashboard refreshes data:
  • Auto-Update (Scheduled Refreshes) – Set predefined intervals to automatically refresh dashboard data.
  • Manual Updates Only – Select “Never” for auto-update if the dashboard should only be refreshed on demand.

Regardless of whether Auto-Update is enabled or disabled, users can manually refresh data at any time directly from the Visualize Home Screen, ensuring flexibility for ad-hoc analysis and real-time reporting.

Once saved, the dashboard is accessible under the Visualize module and retains all chart configurations, filters, and formatting settings.

Granular Sharing with Team Members#

Edilitics allows users to securely share dashboards with internal team members and external stakeholders, ensuring controlled access while maintaining data integrity.

Internal Sharing (Workspace Members)

• Dashboards can be shared with workspace members who have access to the same Edilitics environment.
• Shared users can only view and interact with the dashboard but cannot modify any sheets, charts, or configurations.
• Team members can apply filters, change time ranges, and explore data dynamically while preserving the original structure.

External Sharing (Non-Workspace Users)

• Dashboards can be shared externally via email invitations.
• External users receive a secure dashboard link and must verify access using an OTP (One-Time Password) sent to their registered email for each session.
• External users can only view and interact with the dashboard but cannot make any modifications.

Track Dashboard Views#

Dashboard creators can monitor lifetime view counts directly from the home screen, providing insights into engagement and usage trends.

• The view count metric helps users assess dashboard reach and understand how frequently it is accessed.
• This information is visible only to the dashboard creator, ensuring privacy while tracking usage statistics.

Monitor Active Viewers in Real Time#

When viewing a dashboard, users can see a live list of other users who are currently accessing the same dashboard.

• This real-time user tracking enhances collaboration by providing visibility into active engagement.
• The live viewer list dynamically updates, reflecting users joining or leaving the dashboard view.

Managing Visualizations Throughout Their Lifecycle#

Edilitics provides a flexible and efficient workflow for managing dashboards, ensuring users can keep their visualizations organized, up-to-date, and accessible.

Seamless Dashboard Editing Without Interruptions#

When a shared dashboard is being edited, other users can continue viewing the current version without disruption.

• Editing does not block access – Viewers will continue seeing the last saved version while changes are being made.
• Auto-Refresh on Save – Once the edits are saved, all active viewers' dashboards will automatically refresh to reflect the latest updates.
• Real-Time Collaboration – This ensures a smooth, uninterrupted experience for teams working with shared dashboards.

Updating Titles and Descriptions#

Users can update dashboard titles and descriptions directly from the home screen, making it easy to keep dashboards well-labeled and organized.

• Title updates help maintain clarity when multiple dashboards exist.
• Descriptions provide context to help users understand the purpose of each dashboard.

Modifying Update Schedules#

Users can adjust the auto-update frequency or disable automatic refreshes altogether:

• Increase or decrease update intervals based on reporting needs.
• Switch to manual updates only if scheduled refreshes are not required.
• Changes take effect immediately and ensure dashboards reflect the latest data strategy.

Draft Management#

• Automatic Draft Saving – If users exit a visualization workflow without saving, the dashboard and all associated sheets are automatically saved as drafts.
• Draft Retention – Drafts remain accessible for 7 days, after which they are permanently deleted if not finalized.
• Resume Workflows – Users can return to their draft dashboards and continue editing without losing progress.

Dashboard Duplication#

• Clone Dashboards – Users can duplicate existing dashboards, making it easy to reuse layouts and configurations for new reports.
• Modify Duplicated Dashboards – Once cloned, users can make adjustments to accommodate new data sources, visualizations, or metrics.

This feature is useful for creating variations of a dashboard for different teams, time periods, or analytical needs.