Charting & Data Tables
Zing will automatically display the data in a way that makes sense for the data you selected. For instance, if you have time as field in your question, Zing will automatically plot time on the x-axis from low to high. You can easily change to an alternative visualization if you wish, and can re-order data points, as described below.
If a question does not have a visualization which can be displayed (e.g. a table of text fields), Zing will simply show a table of results. Custom queries (where you provide SQL instead of using Zing’s tap-to-query interface) will display results using a table.
Visualization Types
Zing offers a range of visualization types, which vary based on the number of fields (and field type) returned in your question’s answer:
- Bar Chart
- Stacked Bar Chart
- Grouped Bar Chart
- Line Chart
- Area Chart
- Donut Chart
Toggle between chart types and data tables by tapping the upper right Chart Selection drop down
Tap on a data point in a chart to see a tooltip showing with the value of that data point and its category.
On iOS and Android, you can pinch-to-zoom into specific values or part of a graph.
Sorting
You can easily change the order values are displayed on the graph or data table.
To sort a graph, tap the x-axis and a ‘sort by’ controls will appear below your chart. You can sort by the x-axis, or y-axis from ascending or descending order.
To sort a data table, tap the field name and it toggle between unsorted, descending, and ascending.
Time Comparisons
You can easily change the order values are displayed on the graph or data table.
To add a time comparison to your chart or data table, simply:
- Add a filter with a date/time field
- Select the range you’d like to filter on:
- After a date
- Between two dates
- Relative past dates (e.g. past 12 months, or previous 24 hours)
- Relative future dates (e.g. next 24 hours, next two quarters)
- Relative past to future dates (past 7 days to next 7 days)
- Click ‘compare’ and specify either:
- The previous period (For example, if you had March 15, 2023 - March 25th, 2023 the previous period comparison would be the *same duration (*10 days) ending on the start date of the period specified, in this case March 5 - March 15, 2023)
- The year ago period (For example, if you had March 15, 2023 - March 25th, 2023 the previous period comparison would be the same days and month, but the previous year, in this case March 15, 2022 - March 25, 2022)
Relative dates into the future dates can be useful for looking at forecasts and having a ‘rolling’ period which always shows data relative to the time the question is run.
Drill Down into Specific Data
You can now tap to drill down and get deeper insight on specific data fields!
To see the “Drill Down” tooltip:
- On mobile, tap and long press on a data point on a graph, or simply tap on a cell on a Data Table.
- On web, simply click on a data point on a graph or a cell on a Data Table.
After clicking on the tooltip, you will be brought to the SwiftQuery editor, with axes or columns pre-populated to match those of the original graph or table, along with a filter applied based on the data selected.
For example, if I select a line in a Line Graph that represents the Region of San Francisco, CA, the SwiftQuery editor applies a filter with the condition of Region = San Francisco, CA along with the graph’s original axes.
If I select a cell in a Data Table which has the value of Berkeley, CA for Region, the SwiftQuery editor applies a filter with the condition of Region = Berkeley, CA along with all the columns in the original table.
From here, you can modify your query in the editor before running to dive deep into specific data!
Identify Other Data with the Same Values
You can also “zoom out” and identify other data that share the same value for a particular field or column.
To see the “Show Values” tooltip, it is the same mechanism as to see the “Drill Down” tooltip.
After clicking on the tooltip, a Data Table with all columns will be presented, along with rows of data with values matching the data point or cell that was selected.
For example, if I select a point in a time-series graph and run “Show Values”, I will be able to see a Data Table with all values at the specific time of the data point selected.
If I select a cell in a Data Table with the value of 70 for Homes Sold, a Data Table will be returned where I can all data for months where homes sold in a region equals to 70.
Time and Date Formatting
To change the time and date formatting, tap the x-axis or a table cell, and formatting options will appear in the bottom sheet. Tap on the “Date format” dropdown to choose your preferred formatting options. The options you see will match the time granularity of your question.
If you choose the “custom” option, you can construct a custom format with the following symbols:
| Symbol | Meaning | Presentation | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| y | year | number without truncation or leading zeros | 2012 |
| yy | year | number truncated to the last two digits | 12 |
| yyyy | year | four-digit number, with leading zeros if necessary | 2012 |
| M | month in year | number without a leading zero | 3 |
| MM | month in year | two-digit number, with a leading zero if necessary | 03 |
| MMM | month in year | abbreviated name | Mar |
| MMMM | month in year | full name | March |
| d | day in month | number without a leading zero | 6 |
| dd | day in month | two-digit number, with a leading zero if necessary | 06 |
| EEE | day of week | abbreviated name | Tue |
| EEEE | day of week | full name | Tuesday |
| h | hour in am/pm (1~12) | number without a leading zero | 1 |
| hh | hour in am/pm (1~12) | two-digit number, with a leading zero if necessary | 01 |
| H | hour in day (0~23) | number without a leading zero | 13 |
| HH | hour in day (0~23) | two-digit number, with a leading zero if necessary | 13 |
| m | minute in hour | number without a leading zero | 7 |
| mm | minute in hour | two-digit number, with a leading zero if necessary | 07 |
| ss | second in minute | number without a leading zero | 55 |
| ss | second in minute | two-digit number, with a leading zero if necessary | 55 |
| a | am/pm marker | PM | |
| ' | escape for text | 'Date=' | |
| '' | single quote | 'o''clock' |
You can use characters like ‘/’, ‘:’, ‘-’, ‘.’ directly, without enclosing them in single quotes.
Exporting Graphs and Data Tables
Save graphs to your phone’s photo gallery by tapping the three dots in the top right of the app and click ‘save to photo gallery’. You may need to grant Zing permissions to save files to your phone. These images will be saved as PNGs and can be accessed by other apps on your phone to make it easy to send charts and analysis in email, Slack, and to embed in documents from your mobile device. Easily drop these graphs into Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Slides, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, or Google Docs.
Save tables to your phone by tapping the three dots in the top right of the app and click ‘save table as CSV’. You may need to grant Zing permissions to save files to your phone. This will provide a comma seperated values file which can be used in other apps on your phone such as email, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, and more.
Large Exports
By default, Zing shows you top results by limiting how many data points are shown in a graph or table preview – but gives you the full control to get all data as a CSV (even up to multiple gigabytes). We’ve tested it up to tens of millions of rows and 3 GB + files.
Get started with large exports:
- Create a question
- Save the question (large exports require the question to be saved first)
- Tap the three dots in the upper right, the ‘Export to CSV’
- The file will automatically download once the full query runs and the result is complete
Zing’s large export capability (more detail here) works with Clickhouse, Postgres, BigQuery, and other data sources. If you’d like it for other data sources, let us know.
