Predictive Trend Line Plugin
*This plugin is officially supported by Sisense. You can find the latest version of this plugin on the Sisense Add-Ons page.
Introduction
This article explains how to add a predictive trend line to an existing chart in Sisense. Linear, exponential, and logarithmic trend lines are currently supported.
Purpose/Benefits
The trend line allows an end user to predict future values/metrics based on historical data. See the referenced wiki page on the regression analysis for more information.
Steps
The following steps will walk through the process of adding the new chart type and creating a sample chart.
Step 1 - Add the Plugin
Download the attachment and unzip the contents into your C:\Program Files\Sisense\PrismWeb\plugins\ folder. If the plugins folder doesn't exist, just create it. After those files have been unzipped there, you may also have to restart the web server.
Step 2 - Create the Chart
On your dashboard, click the Create Widget button and select Advanced Configuration. Next, select the Column Chart from the chart types menu. Pick a datetime dimension for the CATEGORIES, and one or more measures under VALUES. The most common scenario is to add the same measure twice, so that we can see the historical data as one series and then we can turn the second series into a trend line.
On the second measure, click on the Settings menu and you should see a new option for Regression. This menu may be set to None by default, but you can select a prediction method to use against the data series.
Step 3 - Define the time frame
The default view will predict future values based on the calendar year (see below). If you want to change this, click on the Settings menu for the widget (top right corner of the screen)
- None - Show the trend for historical time periods only.
- Calendar End - This option will depend on your date dimension's level of aggregation
- Years - When viewing data at a yearly level, the next 5 years will be predicted out
- Quarters - When viewing data at a quarterly level, the plugin will predict through Q4 of the calendar year
- Months - When viewing data at a monthly level, the plugin will predict through Dec of the calendar year
- Days - When viewing data at a daily level, the plugin will predict through the last day of the month
- Next 3 - This option will predict out the next 3 time periods
- Next 6 - This option will predict out the next 6 time periods
- Next 12 - This option will predict out the next 12 time periods
References/Notes
- This plugin was created by using the Highcharts API to update how standard bar charts are displayed by Sisense. If further customization is required, the Highcharts API can be found here.
- This plugin also references the regression-js code created by Tom Alexander, which can be found here.
- This plugin is an extension of a previously created plugin, which can be found here
- This plugin also supports having multiple regression lines on the same widget.
- This plugin only supports one dimension on the x-axis (no hierarchies)
- If your regression line is not smooth, it may be because there are gaps in the dates of your data. You can resolve this by turning on the Continuous Timeline option of the date dimension.
- If you set a value in the widget to use this plugin, you should not toggle the value off, if you want to disable it just delete it or set the regression to none and then toggle it off. leaving the value with regression but toggled to invisible will generate an error that will not allow to export the dashboard.
- Linear Regression Wiki
- UPDATED 11/16/2015 - Added support for Sisense version 6.0
- UPDATED 01/07/2016 - Added support for Sisense version 6.0.1.87
- UPDATED 07/07/2016 - Added support for Sisense version 6.4
- UPDATED 12/12/2016 - Added support for Sisense version 6.5
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Super usefule.. Thanks..
A suggestion from our use case scenario that would prove to be really useful:
1. Trend lines are significant for tracking when projects might get completed. Would be nice to extrapolate to a certain value - For completion percentage , we would want to know when in time a project would get completed . i.e. dynamically alter x-axis (timeframe) to when value hits 100% or something else. Is this possible ?
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After further investigation, the "Predictive Trend Line Plugin" work as expected on 6.6.1. The issue which Mark experienced is related to another plugin.
If someone encounters the same issue, please check your plugins first to make sure it doesn't interfere with the "Predictive Trend Line" plugin's functionality.
Thanks,
Orit
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Another issue within the steps.
When adding the same field twice. You can't rename the second field. When trying to, it changes the name of both fields. I've a ticket opened on the issue. It's not just in line charts. It's within any widget.
Step from the instructions above: 2. The most common scenario is to add the same measure twice, so that we can see the historical data as one series and then we can turn the second series into a trend line.
I'm on Version 6.6.1.13002
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I am on version 7.0.2 and using this plug in downloaded on 4/5/2018. When I add the second measure and add the linear regression, I end up with a second column (mirroring the first measure) in the chart along with the linear regression. How do we stop the second column from showing up in the chart?
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Hi Stefan,
Did you download the latest version for Sisense Market Place https://www.sisense.com/marketplace/forecasting/
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Hi Takashi,
I have an issue about showing the Regression Line as a separate line with different color.
I need to a Linear/Log Regression Line to "Revenue" measure so that I tried the first selecting the Regression option at first measures like below
when I do that it shows the next 3 months values as dotted line BUT I'm NOT able to change the line color
after that duplicated the Revenue measure and select the Linear Regression option only for this new duplicated measure. even if I'm able to change/define different color for this duplicated measure, it added/shows(as usual) the additional RED columns beside the first revenue measure.
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We're having a similar issue in 7.2 that Erkan Çiftçi reported so I won't add my screen shots. All existing dashboards using the plugin are broken with the newest version of the plugin and 7.2.
We do have an older version of the plugin that keeps the existing widgets working, but if you edit an existing widget it will make the trend line go away. With new widgets the trend line doesn't even appear when you try to add it. There is no version number on the older version that we have that is partially working.
I would say this is not working in 7.2
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Thank you for your feedback. we reviewed the items and decided to add support both options:
- Predictive line will replace existing measure added to the chart (Previous version). - Will allow to change color of trend line.
- Predictive line will be added as a new series to the chart without impacting existing series' (Current solution).
Configuration will be done via config.js file in the plugin.
We'll work on it and update in the next few weeks.
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Hi All,
We updated to a new version that includes allows to revert to the previous approach where predictive trend line is replacing a series from metadata. that allows to set the color.
Latest solution can be found here.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
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Hey Avi,
This is working perfectly for a customer, except they would like to trim the Trend Line to just trend the data. No forecast. They are currently using the Linear Trendline option in Excel charts to produce the report. Is there some widget script that could be provided to do that? Example provided in the screenshot below.
Long time no talk. Hope to see you Eureka, Jim
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