Measures and Dimensions

When you connect a datasource, chart.io automatically sorts your data into measures and dimensions, which provide a convenient way of organizing your data.

Measures

Measures refer to quantitative data, such as number of units sold, number of unique visits and so on. When creating visualizations, measures typically map to the Y axis of a chart.

Dimensions

Dimensions refer to categorical data, such as state, gender, product name or units of time (e.g., day, week, month). Generally, dimensions are used to group quantitative data into categories (e.g., number of units sold by state) and typically map to the X axis.

*A note about the time dimension: Chartio automatically places date-related columns (either type DATE, DATETIME or the Unix TIMESTAMP) into the dimensions section.

Switching Measures and Dimensions

Sometimes columns which behave like measures are actually better suited to be categorized as a dimensions and vice versa. Age is one example of this. To move a column from the measures section to dimensions or vice versa, simply drag and drop it.