How to Normalise Pane Split or Measure Axes

Omniscope’s panning functionality enables users to create variations of the same chart for each value in a specific field, for example to display the same chart for every product or category.

A common issue in this scenario is that the split values differ from one category to the next, or the values are on different scales, making comparison difficult.

Let’s illustrate this with an example.

Suppose we are analysing a company’s spending data, showing monthly figures per category.

First, let’s ensure that the [Month] values, formatted as text in this dataset, appear in chronological order. This can be achieved by dragging the values to the correct positions from the field’s three-dot menu.

Now we have a comparison where each category shows the months with spending. 

In the R&D category, there was no spending in January, so the first bar shows the February value, making it misaligned with other panes. This can be acceptable in some scenarios, but we can also align the split values to see all months, even when there was no spending.

In the Pane > Normalise splits menu, we can choose between Universal and Independent settings. "Universal" creates a uniform split axis appearance for all panes, while "Independent" adjusts the split to each pane’s data values (so some months may be missing if the spend = 0).

When we also add colour to the bars (here by Category) it is much easier to follow the fluctuations.

The measure normalisation functionality follows a similar logic. Each pane can adjust measure ranges to the data range within a specific ‘data container’ or harmonise the measure axis range to adjust to all data (like in the image below).

In this case, spending in Marketing, Lab and Legal services is on different scales, making the spending in some panes almost invisible. 

If we want to evaluate the spending independently, to compare one month with the next, regardless of the spending in other categories, we can select the ‘Independent’ setting from the Pane > Normalise measure range menu.

Now we can see the Legal services spend and evaluate it regardless of the fact that it's significantly lower than amounts in other categories.