Where the Gauge visual uses the circular arc to show the current progress, the KPI visual takes a more explicit approach and just shows the value in plain text, along with the goal. The only real visual elements that are in play with this visual occur when the indicator value is lower than the goal and the text is shown in red, and when it has surpassed the goal and the text is in green. This is definitely one of the more direct visuals and perfectly exemplifies what we want for a KPI.
Let's look at, setting up the visual:
- Ensure that no other visual is selected, and bring in the KPI visual, and move it as you see fit.
- For the Indicator section, go ahead and select the Total Sales measure.
- Next, choose the Prior Year Sales measure to represent the Target Goals section.
- The last piece that we need to add is for the Trend Axis,for which we will be using the Year option from the Date (Order) table.
If, after following the preceding steps, the visual displays a value of Blank for the indicator, do not worry. This is because it is trying to show the total sales for the year 2010, the most recent value in our dataset. Unfortunately, we do not have any sales for 2009 or 2010, so to have this visual display correctly simply choose any other year from the slicer that we added in the previous section. Once you have accomplished this, you will now be able to view the KPI visual, and it should look like Figure 5-19:
