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Visualizing cost-breakdowns, material, and energy flow data is not easy.
Why?
The data is complex. And this means if you use a random chart to extract insights, you’ll be just scratching the surface. To access in-depth insights on a micro-level, you need a specialized chart, especially when handling this type of data.
Well, there’s a chart called Sankey that does this job perfectly. Wait! There’s more. This chart is incredibly easy to read and interpret for the audience, even if they have a non-technical audience.
To access this chart, you need a Sankey Diagram generator that’s easy to use.
This blog will walk you through tips to follow to create a persuasive and compelling data story using Sankey Diagram Generator Excel.
Why Excel?
Excel is one of the most popular spreadsheet apps around. Besides, it’s familiar to most people because it has been there for decades.
Keep reading because you don’t want to miss the rest of the blog in which you will learn about a library that will help you to create beautiful charts for your data.
Definition: Sankey Diagrams are charts best suited for visualizing the flow of material, energy, cost breakdowns, or other measurable resources.
This diagram draws the reader’s attention to the largest flows, consumers, the main losses, etc. And it uses color strategically to highlight the key insights of interest to the data story.
Sankey Charts use links with width proportional to the flow of the variable. So if a flow is twice as wide, it represents double the variable, which can be energy, cost breakdown, or material flow.
Each node appears once and is connected to other nodes by flows. Sankey charts are widely used for the following:
Learn in this video how to create Sankey Visualization using Sankey Diagram Generator in free tools like Excel and Google Sheet. You can use the following guide to create Sankey Chart on both tools: Microsoft Excel & Google Sheets.
Data is the new gold in today’s world.
Data-driven companies are likely to go out of business if they don’t use a Sankey Diagram. A Sankey Chart comes loaded with competitive advantages that can make or break businesses.
Remember, there are no shortcuts in making profitable decisions in today’s world. Yes, without visualizing the data.
ChartExpo offers immersive dashboards, which can make a massive difference in the way data visualization impacts your business.
Besides, it’s highly affordable and amazingly easy to use.
It comes loaded with different types of charts that are used to create interactive dashboards. And this is to help you uncover hidden patterns within your company’s data. ChartExpo is an add-in for Excel because the spreadsheet app lacks Sankey templates.
Use ChartExpo as your Sankey Diagram generator Excel to create irresistible and persuasive stories using this chart.
Imagine you and your spouse want a breakdown of how you earn and spend within your household. Besides, you also want to know the amount of money you set aside.
The net revenue in your household comes from you, your spouse, and a passive income project.
Let’s use the table below for our scenario.
| Income | Budget | Expense Mean | Spent On | Spending |
| Simon (you) | Budget | Budget Expenses | Auto Charity | 100 |
| Simon (you) | Budget | Budget Expenses | Mortgages on 2 Houses | 2250 |
| Simon (you) | Budget | Budget Expenses | Dining Out and Groceries | 1358 |
| Simon (you) | Budget | Budget Expenses | Property Taxes 2 Houses | 1010 |
| Simon | Budget | Budget Expenses | Utilities & House Cleaning | 952 |
| His Wife | Budget | Budget Expenses | Parking and Car Expenses | 689 |
| His Wife | Budget | Budget Expenses | Life Ins and Child Care | 491 |
| His Wife | Budget | Budget Expenses | Insurance Life and House | 304 |
| His Wife | Budget | Account | Leftover | 3800 |
| His Wife | Budget | Saving and Retirement | Dividend Reinvestment | 500 |
| Passive | Budget | Saving and Retirement | Automatic Cash Savings | 1900 |
| Passive | Budget | Saving and Retirement | Retirement | 1191 |
| Passive | Budget | Saving and Retirement | HSA | 360 |
| Passive | Budget | Saving and Retirement | Deferred Compensation | 300 |
| Passive | Budget | Saving and Retirement | I-Bond | 100 |
Assume you’ve been assigned a task to visualize the immigrant data of the past financial year.
Your goal is to establish the number of people emigrating from developing countries, such as China and Mexico, to highly developed countries in North America and the European Union.
So you’ve scraped data from multiple immigration sites on the web to visualize your data story. We recommend the most affordable and easy-to-use Sankey Diagram Creator (ChartExpo).
Let’s use the tabular data below for the scenario above.
| Left Countries | Countries Union | Countries | Count |
| China | European Union | France | 57 |
| China | European Union | Switzerland | 97 |
| China | European Union | Austria | 100 |
| China | European Union | Sweden | 45 |
| China | European Union | Belgium | 30 |
| China | European Union | Netherland | 45 |
| China | European Union | Spain | 66 |
| Mexico | European Union | France | 82 |
| Mexico | European Union | Switzerland | 16 |
| Mexico | European Union | Austria | 13 |
| Mexico | European Union | Sweden | 67 |
| Mexico | European Union | Belgium | 64 |
| Mexico | European Union | Netherland | 40 |
| Mexico | European Union | Spain | 31 |
| Russia | European Union | France | 52 |
| Russia | European Union | Switzerland | 7 |
| Russia | European Union | Austria | 45 |
| Russia | European Union | Sweden | 27 |
| Russia | European Union | Belgium | 7 |
| Russia | European Union | Netherland | 35 |
| Russia | European Union | Spain | 44 |
| Hong Kong | European Union | France | 63 |
| Hong Kong | European Union | Switzerland | 97 |
| Hong Kong | European Union | Austria | 25 |
| Hong Kong | European Union | Sweden | 90 |
| Hong Kong | Europe Union | Belgium | 96 |
| Hong Kong | European Union | Netherland | 96 |
| Hong Kong | European Union | Spain | 54 |
| Japan | European Union | France | 99 |
| Japan | European Union | Switzerland | 60 |
| Japan | European Union | Austria | 60 |
| Japan | European Union | Sweden | 80 |
| Japan | European Union | Belgium | 29 |
| Japan | European Union | Netherland | 95 |
| Japan | European Union | Spain | 94 |
| Brazil | European Union | France | 39 |
| Brazil | European Union | Switzerland | 7 |
| Brazil | European Union | Austria | 44 |
| Brazil | European Union | Sweden | 5 |
| Brazil | European Union | Belgium | 9 |
| Brazil | European Union | Netherland | 82 |
| Brazil | European Union | Spain | 6 |
| China | North America | United States | 41 |
| China | North America | Canada | 26 |
| Mexico | North America | United States | 51 |
| Mexico | North America | Canada | 58 |
| Russia | North America | United States | 28 |
| Russia | North America | Canada | 88 |
| Hong Kong | North America | United States | 38 |
| Hong Kong | North America | Canada | 24 |
| Japan | North America | United States | 82 |
| Japan | North America | Canada | 17 |
| Brazil | North America | United States | 90 |
| Brazil | North America | Canada | 77 |
Definition: Customer flow mapping is the visual process of plotting a customer’s journey and analyzing their interactions with a brand.
This helps you look at your business from the customer’s viewpoint. Yes, you read that right.
Essentially, customer flow mapping provides you with insights into a customer’s pain points. If you want customers to come running to your brand, get their pain points right, personalize, and resonate with them.
This is where a Sankey Diagram comes in.
For instance, if you want to visualize a customer’s experience throughout their buying journey, start by listing the various touchpoints (nodes) that they go through before making a purchase.
Consider a primary e-commerce platform for this scenario. A typical e-commerce brand has a funnel you can visualize using a Sankey.
From landing on an e-commerce brand website or opening an app to making a purchase, several nodes are involved at various stages. Like we said earlier, a node is connected to other nodes via a flow (link) of the variable under study.
So if you’re running an e-commerce brand, you can easily track leads proceeding from one touchpoint to another. Besides, a simple Sankey Diagram empowers you to identify leakages (the point where leads drop-off before converting). Essentially, you can easily find out how many of them have left abruptly.
Remember, nodes at each level can vary based on the nature of the business, goals, and data points of interest. Like we said earlier, the journey leads take is complex because of different attributions.
We’ve rounded up all the possible attributions below:
We have a quick question. Why do we collect data?
Yes, you got it right. We gather data to find flow in the form of trends and correlations. And this flow qualifies to be an insight. Working with complex data that shows flow-like attributes requires a chart. And not any other chart, but Sankey.
What’s the flow in data?
A flow is a series of data that repeats recognizably. You can catch a flow by analyzing past data. Picture a river flowing in a particular direction. The flow repeats over and over until there’s a disturbance, such as floods. Less frequent occurrences that disturb a flow qualify to be called outliers.
Sankey Chart is strategically positioned to visualize data with flow-like attributes, such as energy and material flows, etc. This is why you need a Sankey Diagram builder in Excel.
This chart transforms complex, raw data into insights for your data story. Sankey Diagrams emphasize the significant transfers or flow within a system. More so, they help locate the most important contributions to a flow. And they often show conserved quantities within a defined system’s boundaries.
Use this chart to identify the areas that need urgent improvement, such as customer satisfaction.
There are so many charts out there you can use to visualize your data. However, not all of them are suited in visualizing highly complex data, such as energy flow.
This is where Sankey Diagram comes in.
This chart visualizes complex processes, with a particular focus on single or multiple variables you intend to highlight. We recommend this chart if your team is about to make critical decisions about energy, time, or money.
Why?
Sankey chart supports multiple viewing levels. Yes, you read that right.
Essentially, your audience can get an all-around view of the critical insights you’re communicating. Furthermore, you can predetermine the depth of insights you intend to pass through.
An interesting fact about the Sankey Diagram is that they make dominant contributors or consumers stand out. Your audience will hardly struggle to read and understand the chart.
Data visualization positively affects an organization’s decision-making process with interactive Sankey representations of data. You can now recognize patterns of flow of data more quickly with this chart.
Yes, of course. You need a Sankey Diagram generator Excel to visualize complex data with flow characteristics. Remember, you cannot improvise with other charts, such as Bar graphs or pie charts if you want to uncover hidden insights.
Free Sankey Diagram creator to sweeten the deal sounds even better, right?
It’s a no-brainer that tons of complex data, especially in spreadsheets, will only waste your time if you start crunching numbers.
This is where a Sankey Diagram generator comes in.
Although there’re multiple tools in the market, not all of them will help you visualize your data quickly and easily. We mean scrolling your mouse-kind of easy. You don’t have to enroll in night classes to learn programming or coding to visualize your data using Sankey.
How efficient will you be if you take it upon yourself and decide to create this chart manually? How much time will you consume just to generate a single chart for your data story? You don’t have to undergo this ordeal.
And this is because there’s a tool that’s incredibly easy to use to visualize your complex data using Sankey Diagrams. Keep reading because you don’t want to miss the coming section.
We’ve rounded up benefits for the Sankey Diagram. Check them out:
Sankey Diagrams are named after Irish Captain Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey, who used them in 1898 to visualize the energy efficiency of a steam engine.
The original charts displayed just one type of flow (e.g., steam). Besides, they used colors for different types of flows to express additional variables.
Sankey diagrams are flow charts typically used to visualize the flow of material, energy, cost, or any measurable resource, shown proportionally to the flow quantity. They draw the reader’s attention to the most significant flows, the largest consumers, the major losses, etc.
The Sankey Diagram comes in handy, especially if you want to visualize an entire input and output flow in a system, such as a boiler generator, to derive an energy balance equation.
Besides energy balance calculations, you can use this chart to visualize marketing data (funnels) and cost breakdowns of a company.
Congratulations if you’ve managed to reach this point.
Like we said earlier, you don’t have to struggle visualizing data with flow-like characteristics, such as energy and material flow.
Use the Sankey Diagram to visualize this type of data because it’s amazingly easy to read and interpret, especially in data stories. The Sankey Diagram visualizes the flow of material, energy, cost, or any measurable resource.
If you’ve just landed here, this blog has tons of energy transfer diagram examples. (Refer back to the body of the blog to take your data storytelling skills a step further using a Sankey Chart).
The key to reading and interpreting Sankey Diagrams is noting that the width is proportional to the quantity represented. If used effectively, it’s arguably the best visualization to use in a data story.
With the Sankey Diagram, you can achieve the following:
So what’s the best tool to use to visualize complex data with Sankey?
As we said earlier, Excel lacks Sankey Chart templates. So the best way to create Sankey Diagram in excel is ChartExpo. Similarly you can use ChartExpo Add-on to create Sankey Diagram in Google Sheets.
Why?
This tool comes as an add-in for Excel to make it reliable, no matter the circumstances. Use this Sankey Diagram generator Excel ChartExpo to produce amazingly easy-to-read and interpret charts.
Sign Up today to create irresistible and persuasive data stories using Sankey Diagrams.
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