Introduction

The Insights default number format for the charts uses commas to break up large numbers and will show up to three significant digits after the decimal point (9,999.000).

Sometimes the default Insights number format is just too noisy for your chart. The “at a glance” meaning is lost due to the precision. What if you want just to show one, or maybe no decimals in your chart? .

We can change the way each number is formatted in the Index Patterns to bring clarity to the chart.

The Example

Our example is a simple bar chart showing the Average Class Days per each type of course taken by employees. Because the average value is calculated as the chart renders, the Average value takes on the default number format of up to three decimal places.

Since we are talking about the average number of days for classes, precision to a thousandth of a day doesn’t help comprehension. I would argue that it just needlessly increases user cognitive load without additional value.

I want the chart to show the average rounded to one decimal point. This is enough for the user to understand the meaning of the value.

Changing the Default Number Format

Insights controls the format of the fields on the Index Patterns. Not the Chart or Dashboard.

Open the Index Pattern used in the Visualization and look for the numeric field that is being averaged. In our Example, its the “Days” field.

Click on the Edit icon to end the “Days” field properties.

We see that the number format is the default – “0,0.[000]”. This means that this number will be displayed with up to 3 decimal places of precision. We want to change that to 1 decimal point.

Change the format field to “0,0.[0]”. This tells Insights to round to the tenths place, one decimal precision. The samples below the format field change to display how this number will now appear on the Visualizations.

Visualizations automatically pick up the new format

Now, when we go back to our Visualization, we see that the Average Class Days number in our chart all are rounded to one decimal place. The chart picked up the new number format for days as is rendered.