Key Features of Sankey Charts in Power BI 

A Sankey diagram displays the movement of data, resources, or values across multiple stages, making it especially useful for analyzing processes like cost allocation, user behavior flows, and data pipeline performance. This chart type shows how values progress from a source, through one or more intermediate stages, to a final target, offering a clear view of volume distribution at each step. Sankey charts are now available in Power BI, enabling more detailed flow analysis within your reports and dashboards. Learn more about Sankey charts in part 1 of our blog series here.  

In this post, we’ll explore the key features of the Sankey chart now available in Inforiver Analytics+, introduced in the latest release to support dynamic, insightful flow analysis in Power BI. 

Table of Contents 

1. Orientation 
2. Alignment 
3. Node formatting 
4. Flow formatting 
5. Data label 
6. Interaction 
7. Negative Values 

You can easily build Sankey charts in Power BI with custom visuals by Inforiver Analytics+. It empowers you with all the right features to build a Sankey diagram.  

Let’s take a closer look at each feature of Sankey charts offered:  

1. Orientation 

You can create Sankey charts with vertical and horizontal orientations in Power BI. Choosing the right orientation largely depends on the type of data you have and the story you want to tell, as well as the report layout you’ve chosen. 

• Use a horizontal Sankey chart when you have a simple, linear flow with fewer stages and short labels. 

• Use a vertical Sankey chart when you have longer labels, multiple breakdowns, or when the flow makes more sense from top to bottom. 

To enable this feature in Inforiver Analytics+: 

Plot the Sankey chart > Switch the orientation from the toolbar. 

2. Alignment 

In a Sankey chart, you can choose from various alignment options. This impacts the readability of the data. 

• Justified (Spread): Evenly spaced nodes. Good for balanced views when no specific order within levels matters. What matters is the connection between the previous and the next levels. 

• Start: Nodes aligned at the start/top. Emphasizes starting points or top-level items in a hierarchy. 

• End: Nodes aligned at the end/bottom. Highlights ending points or final outputs. 

• Center: Nodes centered vertically or horizontally when there is no visual hierarchy, and the start and end points are the focus. 

• Categorical: It aligns the nodes based on the levels, irrespective of blanks. Use this for Arbitrary diagram in Power BI. 

3. Node Formatting 

Nodes are the stacked categories or legends for which we are tracking the flow. You can control their formatting to change the visual perception.  

In Inforiver, you can control: 

• Node width, padding, and spacing 

• Opacity for better visual contrast 

• Colors based on category or level 

4. Flow Formatting 

Flows help link the connections between two nodes. By optimizing the flow formatting, we can improve the narration style. Here are three color versions that significantly improve the flow: 

• Gradient: Flow color depends on its source and target nodes. This flow creates a gradient that helps understand the interlinking of connections. 

• Source: Flow colors are based on the source node. This is helpful when users want to track the source direction. 

• Target: Flow colors are based on the end or target node. This is helpful when users want to track their target destination. 

5. Data Label 

With Inforiver Analytics+ Sankey, you can control data labels by each level or for all labels. It offers separate settings for flow and node labels. You also have the ability to show labels on hover or always. This avoids a cluttered view of data labels and only shows information on hover. 

Other data label properties include: 

• Display type: Contains category, value, and percentage. 

• Position: Inside or outside. 

• Font style: Size, bold, italic, underline, and color. 

• Overlapping: Hide or show overlapping labels. 

6. Interaction 

One of the most powerful features is the hover effect. When you hover over a flow, it highlights that path and dims others. This makes it easier to trace connections. 

To enable this in Inforiver Analytics+, go to Settings in Canvas and enable hover over effect to control the active and inactive flow opacity. 

Inforiver Sankey also supports cross-filtering with other visuals in Power BI. That means you can click a node or flow and filter other charts on the same page. 

7. Negative Values  

In financial datasets, data can comprise both negative and positive values. As Sankey charts show the proportion of the total flow, they cannot directly support negative values. Hence, by enabling "Filter negative data," you can hide the negative values.  

By default, Sankey converts all negative values to their absolute values and incorporates them in the calculation. 

Learn more about Inforiver Analytics+ 

Inforiver Analytics+ is all-in-one visualization suite that offers 100+ charts, Gantt, KPI cards and tables. It is designed to bridge the gaps from other legacy BI tools like Tableau, Qlik and Spotfire while migrating to Power BI.  

Sankey Flow AKA Arbitrary Diagram is a popular visualization available across all business intelligence tools. To achieve the same flexibility and features in Power BI, try Analytics+. It offers features such as alignment, orientation, color support, and other interaction properties to build smarter solutions. 

Try Inforiver Analytics+ for free today and build your own Sankey in Power BI.