Cross two dimensions and use cell colour to compare a measure. A heat matrix helps find patterns across region and product, day and hour, or team and metric category. It is new in 10.00.

Build regional category sales

1. In Components → Charts → Distribution & correlation, add Heat matrix and select an Analysis model in Data.
2. Set X axis to Region, Y axis to Category L1 and Measure to Net Sales. Use equivalent fields in your model.
3. Set Filters to Year = 2025. Each cell now holds sales for one region and category.
4. Add optional fields to Tooltips. Check the values before choosing the colour scale.

Each slot takes one field. There is no Color slot: colour always comes from the measure and the colour scale. The X axis supports drill down; the Y axis does not. Prefer a row limit on X: a row limit on Y keeps the top items within each X member and leaves the matrix ragged.

A new heat matrix is placed at 400 × 300 px, shows the X-axis name, and has data-label Display units set to Auto.

Choose what colours compare

Open Style → Color scale → Normalize.

Mode	Meaning of the darkest cell
Overall (default)	High relative to all cells. Use for absolute comparisons.
By row	High within its own row. In this example, the strongest region for each category.
By column	High within its own column. In this example, the strongest category within each region.

Normalisation changes colours only: with By row or By column, two equally dark cells need not have equal values, the colour legend reads Low–High, and the tooltip still shows the raw value. If a dark cell holds an unexpectedly small value, check the normalisation mode before assuming a calculation error, and change the mode only when you mean to change the comparison question.

With By row, the same data shows East China as the darkest cell in every category row, although Home Care sales are much lower than Personal Care & Beauty sales:

Color scale settings

Setting	Effect	Default
Color scheme	Sequential blue, Sequential green, Sequential orange, Sequential purple, Diverging (blue–white–red), Diverging (red–yellow–green) or Custom.	Sequential blue
Minimum color, Middle color, Maximum color	Shown for Custom. A transparent middle colour gives a two-colour gradient.	Light blue, transparent, dark blue
Range	Auto: data minimum to maximum. Fixed: the Minimum and Maximum you enter (swapped if reversed). Shown only with Normalize → Overall.	Auto
Midpoint	Value that gets the middle colour. Shown for diverging schemes (or Custom with a middle colour) with Normalize → Overall; also used with a fixed range. Empty = halfway between the data minimum and maximum.	Empty
Steps	Continuous, or 3–9 colour steps. Automatic step boundaries are rounded to readable numbers (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 8 times a power of ten).	Continuous
Empty cell color	Background of cells without a value, drawn with light diagonal stripes.	White

Use Fixed to keep colours comparable across charts or filter states. Use a diverging scheme only when values spread around a meaningful midpoint, such as zero variance. Do not rely on red and green alone to communicate status.

Make cells readable

Setting	Effect	Default
Cells → Gap	Space between cells, 0–8 px.	1 px
Cells → Corner radius	0–8 px.	0 px
Data labels → Show	Values in the cells. Labels that do not fit their cell are not drawn.	Off
Data labels → Font size	8–20 px.	11 px
Data labels → Display units, Decimal places	See Display Units and Decimal Places.	Auto for new charts
Data labels → Auto contrast	White text on dark cells, dark text on light cells, following the step colours.	On
X axis order, Y axis order	Query order, Name ascending, Name descending, Total ascending, Total descending. The total is the row or column sum and is used only for sorting.	Query order
Color legend → Show color legend	Shows how colours map to values.	On
Color legend → Position	Right or Bottom.	Right
Tooltip → Show Tooltip	Turns the hover tooltip on or off.	On

The Y axis runs from top to bottom. Overlapping X labels are hidden; for long names use X axis → Rotate labels.

How it behaves

• The tooltip lists the X member, the Y member, the measure value and any Tooltips fields.
• Cells without a value show (Blank) in the tooltip and cannot be clicked. They differ from a measured zero.
• The axes never scroll: with many members the cells get smaller. The data point limit counts cells.
• There is no Analytics tab, so no reference lines.

Related: Calendar chart · Top/Bottom N · Tooltips · Empty Data and Error Messages