Customizing queries

After you create a query, you can customize its appearance and results. If you have not yet created a query, see Creating queries. Use this article to learn how to edit and customize the appearance and results from your query.

This article contains the following topics:

• Editing your query
  • Editing queries on a dashboard
  • Editing queries in query builder
• Customization options
  • Changing your chart type
  • Customizing your chart
  • Editing your metrics and attributes

Important: When you make changes to a query that is included on a dashboard, readers of that dashboard won't see the updated query until you republish the dashboard. See Sharing dashboards.

Editing your query

This section shows you how to access configuration options in the query builder. Query builder is the main place where you build, and customize queries.

You can edit your query from the following two locations:

• Editing queries on a dashboard
• Editing queries in query builder

Editing queries on a dashboard

On a dashboard you can either edit some query configuration options from the chart configuration menu (see Customizing your chart) or open the query in the query builder from where you can access all of the options.

To edit a query on a dashboard

1. Click the dashboards library icon ().
2. Open the dashboard containing the query you want to edit.
3. Click the query.
4. Click the down arrow in the upper right corner of the query.

   

5. Select from the following editing options:
   • Edit query: Access all editing options, including adding new data and changing the chart type. The query will open in query builder.
   • Edit configuration: Customize only the report appearance using the chart configuration menu (). For information on the customization tools you can use, see Customizing your chart.

Editing queries in query builder

If you do not have your query added to a dashboard or are not working on a dashboard, you can edit your query in query builder.

To open query builder

1. Click the Queries library icon () on the left toolbar.
2. Click the Settings icon () for the query you want to edit.

   

3. From the Settings drop-down list, choose Edit.

   

Query builder opens, and loads the query you selected.

Customization options

In Explore, you can choose several customization options for your query. These options exist in the customization menus on the right panel of query builder.

Note: When editing a query from a dashboard, you can only select from the chart configuration menu.

This section contains the following topics:

• Changing your chart type
• Customizing your chart

Changing your chart type

You can display your results using over 20 chart types in Explore (see Visualization types reference). Explore will automatically select a chart type, based on the metrics and attribute you add. You can also select a new chart type in the Visualization type menu () in query builder.

To change your chart type

1. Select your query from the queries library to open query builder.
2. Click the visualization type icon ().
3. Select a new chart type.

   

4. Click the visualization type icon again to close the menu.

Your query is displayed as the selected chart type.

Customizing your chart

You can edit the color, text, and interactions of your query from the Chart configuration menu (). The Chart configuration menu contains customization options unique for each chart type (see Visualization types reference). While some customization options apply to all charts, others are only visible for specific chart types.

Customization options available for all charts:

• Chart: Edit options specific for individual chart types. The chart type contains options to edit the formatting of your chart. If your chart does not have axes, you can edit text size here.
• Colors: Edit your chart text and result colors. If you are the account owner, you can set the default color in the Admin menu.
• Display format: Change the formatting of your results to percentages, currency, timestamps, or custom formats. See Changing your result format for more information.
• Row selector: If your chart has rows, this lets you edit how the row selector on the left hand side of the chart is displayed.
• Legend: Edit the location, visibility, and colors of your legend.
• Datatips: Display information about your results when a user hovers over a data point (see Working with datatips).
• Displayed values: Controls the display and format of metric values on your chart.
• Trend line: Add and format a trend line on your charts.
• Applied filters: Show or hide filters from viewers.
• Visualization Selector: Add the Visualization Selector to your chart. This enables users to toggle between different chart types on a dashboard.
• Interactions: Enable or disable interactions (see Turning off dashboard and query interactivity).
• Decompose type: Enables you to slice only selected data points by additional attributes (see Interacting with queries).
• Drillthrough: Let's you select the elements and their order that you will see when you drill into data on your chart (see Interacting with queries).
• Explosion: Controls the display and style of exploded charts.

Customization options restricted to specific chart types:

• X axis, Y axis, Secondary axes: Edit axes settings, such as color, visibility, and label size. You can edit a secondary axes if you add a metric on a dual axis (see Adding metrics to a dual axis).
• Columns: Edit the width, visibility, and alignment for table columns. For information on customizing tables, see Customizing tables.