Numerical fields being treated like categorical fields

WaitYes

This is a feature request. I don't know how to get it to the proper board.

 

When making most cards Domo is looking for a categorical variable and a numerical variable. For a vertical bar chart they want a categorical field for the x-axis and a numerical field for the y-axis. So if you use a numerical field it treats it like a categorical field. This leads to some strangeness.

 

 

 

As you can see above, Domo has decided to rearrange the number line. It is an easy fix to order them properly, but it can get trickier when you are making something like a heatmap. With a heatmap Domo is looking for two categorical fields and a numerical field. If you are using three numerical field (for example, day of week as a number, hour of the day, and quantity of sales) it can be a frustrating few minutes as you try to figure out how to order the fields you are ordering by.

 

Domo already automatically sorts datetime fields, it'd be nice if it did the same for other numerical fields.

 

Treating numerical fields as categorical fields has another problem that isn't as easily solved as the ordering problem. Here is part of a card I have filtered to show the past 14 days:

 

 

So it seems that March 26th, March 27th, and all the days after April 1st didn't happen, which is a shame because April 5th is my wedding anniversary. What's happening is that there is no data for those missing days, no rows with that date in them. Domo doesn't show categories that aren't in your categorical fields so, when treating numerical (or datetime) fields like categorical fields, it doesn't show "categories" that aren't in your numerical fields.

 

Sometimes I look at a card and think, "We're doing awesome!" before realizing we haven't had business in that category for months.

 

You can sort of fix this by inserting dummy rows into your dataset. These rows are null except for the missing numerical or datetime values but as soon as you filter the dataset those rows are dropped and you have the same problem again.

 

I requested this feature over a year ago and I understand the programmers are incredibly busy, but not only is it a nuisance it makes some cards incredibly difficult to interpret. I know Domo prides itself on the data visualization principles behind each of its card types. This bug causes many cards to violate all those principles.

kshah008

@WaitYes, I have moved your post to our "Ideas" section" for better exposure. 

DaniBoy

product_John

Thank you for submitting this idea @WaitYes.  I am assigning this to our product manager @StevenC for review.

product_John

michaelf

Thanks for taking the time to be so thurough in your description @WaitYes, we appreciate your feedback and we want card builder to be as intuitive as possible. We have internal ticket, DOMO-72832, to review this issue. Thanks!

michaelf