Waterfall Chart

Visualize the cumulative effect of sequentially introduced positive and negative values. The waterfall chart uses columns and colors to show how an initial value is affected by a series of intermediate positive and negative values.

• The initial and final values are represented by whole columns, while the intermediate values are displayed as floating columns. If you enable the totals feature on the Properties panel, a third column is added representing the sum of the positive and negative values.
• The colors of the columns tell you whether the values are positive, negative, or totals. By default, green is used for positive values, red for negative values, and blue for totals. You can change colors in several ways - by applying thresholds to metrics, by using the Properties panel to choose a custom color for positive values, negative values, or totals, and by using the Properties panel to specify the color for a specific metric. If you use multiple methods to control colors, the order in which the colors are applied is first the default colors, then custom colors for positive and negative values, then a color for a specific metric, and finally threshold colors.
• You can customize the look of the visualization by removing the Y axis entirely and adding the labels inside the columns. The labels are placed at the inner top of columns that represent positive values and at the inner bottom of columns that represent negative values. For cases where you want to highlight differences in a specific portion of the data, you can use the Properties panel to start at a number other than zero. For example, this is a good option if one column is so large that the incremental difference makes other columns appear as lines.

Waterfall charts are frequently used to visualize financial statements or data about population, births and deaths. 

The waterfall chart shown below is based only on metrics. If you add an attribute, a succession of waterfalls is shown, with each waterfall representing the metric values for one element of the attribute. This is very useful for quick visual comparisons.

Additional features

• Supports showing the continuity of accumulated values over time
  To enable this feature, drag a time attribute and drop it in the Continuous drop zone on the Editor panel. When this feature is enabled, the starting point for each set of bars is the ending point for the previous set of bars.
• Supports showing totals
  To enable this feature, select the Show Totals checkbox in the Properties panel. The specified time dimension will be used to aggregate the totals. When this feature is enabled, a third column is added representing the sum of the positive and negative values. The color of this bar is determined by the value selected in the color picker for the Totals Bar Color in the Properties panel.
• Supports displaying horizontal lines
  To enable this feature, select the Show Horizontal Lines checkbox in the Properties panel. When this feature is enabled, horizontal lines are displayed at the level of each metric label on the Y-axis of the visualization.