Use analyze data to generate charts and metrics
USM Content
If you're on a Trial plan, you have access to AI tools.
Access analyze data
There are two ways you can access the Analyze data panel:
- Legacy views (Grid, Card, Gantt)
- New views (Table, Board, Timeline)
If you're in the AU region, you can only access analyze data via Table, Board, or Timeline views.
Legacy views
- Go to any sheet and select the Generate with AI tools icon in the right rail.
- Select Analyze data from the list of tools available.
New views
- Navigate to the main toolbar in your sheet.
Locate and select Analyze data.
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Once the Analyze data panel displays, type your question or request into the prompt box that appears. Be clear about the output or result you expect. As you type, you can see sample prompts for your reference.
Alternatively, type in Suggest a question if you want to access sample questions specific to your sheet.
How to interact with analyze data
You can ask all your questions and make modifications in plain language. If the system needs clarification, it asks for it. You can reply in plain language.
If you feel the answers you're getting aren't what you expected, ask follow-up questions to refine the answers.
Ask questions that result in a single-value output, such as What’s the total budget for the IT Department?
You can also visualize data as bar, line, or pie charts. To do so, ask our analyze data tool questions like Show me the budget across all departments or How many tasks is Person A assigned to?
If you ask analyze data to create a chart or metric, use the Explain this result button to access a step-by-step explanation of how the skill generated the response.
Sample questions
You can see suggested prompts pop up when you open analyze data. These prompts are created based on the data in your sheet, making them relevant and context-specific. To use them, simply select one from the Analyze data panel. This provides you with a chart to help visualize your data.
Chart prompt refinements
The Analyze data panel also suggests refinements to your charts to enhance clarity and effectiveness.
These suggestions apply to all charts, whether you created them from a suggested prompt or a manual prompt. When you choose one, it automatically generates a new chart, treating the selected refinement as a new prompt.
Refinement options may include:
- Alternative chart types: For example, using a line chart instead of a bar chart.
- Different groupings or aggregations: For example, using grouping by month rather than by specific dates.
- Filters: For example, excluding null values or displaying the top five values.
- Sort orders: For example, sorting in descending order based on totals.
You can also use the following examples to get an idea of the types of questions you can ask analyze data.
Metrics
- How many issues are at risk?
- What’s the average cost of goods made in the USA?
- Who is the contact person for Project Acme?
Charts
- Compare the percentage of tickets for each assignee
- Show me a chart with the breakdown of tickets that started on each date
- Create a chart showing the number of tasks in each status
You can ask analyze data to create a pie, bar, stacked bar, or line chart. Learn how to add it to a new or existing dashboard.
Counts, percentages, and other requests
- How many tickets are assigned to Ariel?
- What percentage of issues submitted this month are complete?
- How many checked rows have three stars? (Applies if stars is a value in a symbol column)
Add your chart to a dashboard
The analyze data AI tool allows you to easily add charts to new or existing dashboards, making chart generation accessible without needing technical expertise or knowledge of formulas.
When you use the Save as New… option on a dashboard that includes charts created through the Analyze data panel on the sheet, those charts copy over to the new dashboard. These charts reference the same source sheet as the originals. Learn how to use analyze data for chart creation.
Smartsheet Control Center behavior
In Smartsheet Control Center, you can’t update already provisioned dashboards and include analyze data widgets through global updates or enhanced global updates.
However, you can include analyze data widgets as an update to a template dashboard in your blueprint and provision new projects. These new projects include an analyze data widget in a dashboard, and it dynamically updates for each newly provisioned project. Those analyze data widgets point to the newly provisioned source sheet.
Adding an analyze data widget to a dashboard only works for newly provisioned projects and doesn't update any previously provisioned projects.
Share the generated answers as an image
You can share your generated chart or metric in two ways:
- Download as an image
- Copy to clipboard
Download as an image
To download your chart or metric as a png file, select the Download icon.
You see the message Image downloaded once the download is successful.
Copy to clipboard
You can copy your chart or metric as an image and paste it into a Slack message, email, slide, document, and more.
Copying a chart or metric as an image doesn’t mean that you can paste it as a live widget. You can only use the Copy to clipboard button to copy a static image.
To do so, select the Copy to clipboard icon to copy the image onto your clipboard.
You see the message Copied! when copy is successful.
Analyze data limitations
At the moment, analyze data can’t provide:
- Summaries, such as asking to Summarize this sheet
- Answers for the Auto-number and Duration column types, and for the duration between two Date columns
- Options to filter or highlight rows
- Adding metric widgets to a dashboard