In this article, we cover:
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Visualize Your Data with Visor's Views
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Overview for Table, Gantt, Timeline, Dashboard & Board view
Visualize Your Data with Visor's Views
Visor makes it easy to visualize your data from apps like Jira and Asana (or data you manually input). In fact, we offer five different views that are great for different use cases.
Visor's Different Views:
- Table view: Spreadsheet-like reporting; this is our default view at Visor
- Gantt view: Looks like a roadmap; for showing high-level or granular project plans
- Timeline view: Capacity-planning chart; great for resource planning
- Dashboard view: Reports and charts (e.g. pie charts) help improve project oversight
- Board view: Kanbans help teams track work (even if there are no due dates)
Table view
Table View is the default view you'll see after inputting or importing data because everyone knows how to use a spreadsheet; they're familiar and have a low learning curve.
Table view is great for:
- Color-coded reports you can share with anyone -- including non-technical teams
- Making edits in bulk (or as needed); push changes out to apps like Asana or Jira
- Backlog refinement or other agile meetings that require live updates
The Table view is flexible and optimized for you to manage details across all your records.
Tips for using Table View:
1. Organize your data after importing (or inputting)
The Table view is useful for organizing your records.
You can get data into Visor's Table view by:
- Importing from apps like Jira, Asana, or Salesforce
- Copying and pasting from Google Sheets or Excel
- Manually inputting data directly into the Table view
Once your data is in a Table view, you'll be able to see and position all fields. In addition, you will be able to apply filters, sort, and format (color-code) your data to help shape the story you want to share with stakeholders.
2. Add custom Visor fields to add context
If you imported your data from another app (e.g., Jira or Asana), you'll likely want to add custom Visor fields to help tell your data's story or to simply provide context.
For example, if you’re interested in understanding which themes or objectives your projects fall under, add a dropdown custom field to make that clear. Or, if you need to add a text field to provide the customer support team or the C-suite context about a new feature's release, you can do so with custom fields.
Visor offers these custom fields:
3. Add color and filters
This tip is true for all of the views. But color-coding your data makes the story you're telling with your data more clear; people will also remember your takeaways more. Filters allow you to show just what you want to show. For example, perhaps you want to look at just the backlog for a backlog meeting or just Jira epics when talking to the C-Suite.
Gantt view
The Gantt view is great for visualizing your data in a chart that spans over time. Stakeholders or other teams can quickly see when certain work will be completed.
Because the Gantt view displays work over the span of time (whether days, weeks, or months), you will need both start and due dates to visualize your data in this view.
Gantt view is great for:
- Sharing high-level roadmaps across your portfolio of projects
- Making more granular project plans clear to your team
- Adding milestones to visualize key dates
Tips for using Gantt view:
1. Decide the level of granularity with "levels shown" and "filters"
If you use Jira and only want to show Epics or use Asana and don't want subtasks displayed, adjust the "Levels Shown" section of your Gantt view. Next to that area is "Filters", which lets you further drill-down what's in your Gantt. For example, if you only want to show the work of a select few people, then add filters for the "Assignee" field.
2. Format your data
The colors of your bar can (and should!) be color-coded. Click on "Bar colors" to see which field you want to use in your Gantt chart. The same formatting you have for that field in your Table view will be used here. If you haven't added formatting in your Table view, you can do so here for that field.
3. Add Milestones
Milestones help you communicate key dates to yourself or others.
Right-click on a bar chart or diamond (which is how milestones show up in your Gantt) to change what that record will display as.
In the example below, I right-clicked on a milestone so that I can change it to a bar.
Timeline view
Timeline view helps you understand team capacity for resource planning because Timeline view has swimlanes. While typically used for planning purposes, the Timeline view's swimlane feature allows you to group your records by a single factor. This view, therefore, helps you to understand work as it relates to a given team, initiative or project.
Our Timeline view, like Gantt charts, plot work or projects over time. Therefore, like the Gantt view, Timeline view needs start and due date fields.
Use cases for Timeline view:
- Resource planning / capacity-planning: Group work by employee (see chart below)
- Strategic insights: Group projects by objective (for OKRs) or other goal-setting paradigms
- Plan future projects or assess past performance
Tips for using Timeline view:
1. Choose your swimlane
Choose the criteria that you set for your swimlanes thoughtfully. Do you want data grouped by employee, objectives, or some other criteria? This will determine how your chart looks.
See the best practices above for the Gantt chart view. The same tips apply.
2. The best practices for a Gantt view also apply to Timeline
Like the Gantt chart (which also charts projects over time -- but without a swimlane), we recommend that you also color-code your data, apply filters, and add milestones.
Dashboard view
The Dashboard view is great for monitoring your projects and mastering project oversight. Like the other views, you can take data from apps like Jira or Asana (or input your down data) to tell a story with your data. However, unlike the other views, Dashboard offers numerous reporting types.
Dashboard view is great for:
- Providing summaries to executives or stakeholders
- Sharing insights with your team
- Monitoring the success of your project
Tips for using Dashboard view:
1. Explore all the reporting and filtering capabilities
Dashboard view offers pie and bar charts, count and percentage reports, along with the ability to add rich text or embed work. In addition, the filters you can use are more advanced than in the other views.
2. Watch this Dashboard webinar to gain further insight
Board view
The Board view (AKA: Kanban) is great for making it easier to set priorities or assign work using swimlanes.
Swimlanes help you group work. So, if you set your swimlanes by team (see below) then that's how the data will be grouped. Notice how the "Assignee" fields at the top have work across multiple departments; this insight is clear due to "Internal Team" field getting set as the swimlane.
Board view is great for:
- Agile teams that want to track work without committed to dates
- Visualizing work or projects across different teams, themes, or initiatives
- Working meetings where you're going through Jira tickets or tactical work
Tips for Using Board view:
Read our how-to article about using swimlanes in agile. You can explore more there before diving into making one yourself.