Resembling the pie chart, the donut chart is one of the most commonly used charts of all time.
The donut chart is useful when you want to compare parts of a whole and to get a quick understanding of the proportional distribution of your data. It shows the proportions or percentages by dividing the donut in pieces. Every piece represents his proportion to the full circle, which is the sum of all data (100%).
You can find the donut chart in the ‘pie & donut’ section.
When you add this chart to your dashboard, you’ll see there are two slots to add data to: ‘Category’ and ‘Measure’.
As mentioned above, the donut chart is used for visualizing the proportions of the different components of a category. You put your column with the categories in the ‘Category’ slot, and the column with the measurements in the ‘Measure’ slot.
Note that it is also possible to use multiple measures, but you will not be able to filter it by 'Category' anymore.
Just like the pie chart, the donut chart can be a tricky one since our brain is not able to interpret the sizes of different slices of the pie. Especially when the pieces are similar, we can’t easily tell which one is bigger. So there is one rule you should abide if you want to keep the chart relevant: only use it when you have less than 5 slices.
Additionally, you might prefer to see the absolute values instead of the percentages. Good news! In the settings, you have an option to change this. It is also possible to show no values at all. If you don’t see the values or percentages, you might need to make the donut wider.
Sometimes, it is nice to change the layout a little. You can choose to only show half a donut and to replace the typical legend by modern labels.
The legend in this chart can be used to show or hide specific elements by clicking them.
Another chart resembling the donut chart is the pie chart. If you want to compare more than one category, the stacked bar chart of stacked column chart are a perfect fit.