Create an Overlay

Learn how to create and configure an overlay.

Overview

Like other analytic objects, overlays consist of several attributes that define the object and its data. Many overlays contain simple properties, dimensions, and member maps. For example, the Engagement overlay has simple properties like Population and Overall Score, dimensions like Engagement Gender and Engagement Location, and member maps like Engagement Gender Comparison and Engagement Location Comparison.

In an overlay, member maps allow you to compare aggregated overlay data to the data associated with subjects or events. For example, the Engagement Location Comparison is a member map that maps members of the Engagement Location dimension to the Location Hierarchy dimension associated with the Employee subject. This allows you to analyze Engagement data compared to Employee data. If there are unmapped members in the overlay dimension, those records won't show up in the solution experience.

Note:  

  • You may use a shared dimension instead of a member map to compare overlay data to subject or event data if the dimension members from both data sources are the same. If there are differences in the values, it may be difficult to use a shared dimension to compare the data. For more information, see Dimensions.
  • If you're using a parent-child dimension and need to map direct report values, you must use a member map.
  • If you're creating multi-level leveled dimensions, we recommend using a member map.

Create an overlay

  1. In a project, on the navigation bar, click Model > Analytic Objects.
  2. Click Create Analytic Object.
  3. In Analytic object type, select Overlay.
  4. Type a display name and description.
  5. When finished, click Create.

Configure an overlay

To configure an overlay, do the following:

  1. Create properties in the overlay. Properties in Visier should align with data for the overlay; for example, the Overall Score property in the Engagement overlay should align with engagement score data from the source file's column. For more information, see Properties.
  2. Create dimensions in the overlay. Dimensions in Visier should align with data for the overlay; for example, the Engagement Location dimension in the Engagement overlay should align with location data in the engagement source file. For more information, see Dimensions.
  3. Do one of the following:
    • Create and configure member maps. Member maps connect overlay-specific dimensions to corresponding dimensions in other subjects or events; for example, you can map Location Hierarchy and Organization Hierarchy to an Engagement overlay by creating the member maps Engagement Location Comparison and Engagement Organization Comparison and mapping those hierarchies to the Engagement Location and Engagement Organization dimensions. For more information, see Create a Member Map.
    • Connect a shared dimension to the overlay. Shared dimensions connect overlay data to subject or event data that contain matching dimension members. For more information, see Create a Leveled Dimension or Create a Parent-Child Dimension.

      Tip:  

      • If your overlay data doesn't match the subject or event data, use a member map. For example, if the Gender values in the overlay are M and F but the Gender values in the Employee subject are Man and Woman, use a member map.
      • If your overlay data matches the subject or event data, use a shared dimension. For example, if the Gender values in the overlay are M and F and the Gender values in the Employee subject are also M and F, use a shared dimension.
  4. Map data values to attributes in the overlay. Each overlay has mandatory attributes and optional attributes that are mapped to columns in the overlay data; for example, the EventDate attribute is mapped to the Date column in the overlay source data. For more information, see Mappings.
  5. Define the settings in the overlay. Each overlay has settings such as the time model and aggregation type; for example, engagement data is subject-like and aggregated using lookup behavior. For more information, see Overlay settings below.

Overlay settings

The overlay settings allow you to modify its categorization and treatment of values.

Tags

Tags are user-defined categories that group content in the solution. A tag can apply to multiple object types, including analytic objects, metrics, and guidebooks. A user may filter for objects with a particular tag throughout the solution. For this setting, add tags to identify the object as part of a specific content category. For more information about tags, see Create and Assign Tags to Content.

Example:  

The Compensation tag is used for the Pay Change Events metric, the Total Cost of Workforce concept, the Compensation Type dimension, and the Compensation Payout event. This tag therefore groups these objects together as relating to compensation. The Compensation tag itself is allocated to the Talent module, meaning it exists within that solution.

Time model

The time model defines how overlay values are handled. This setting primarily defines what values are shown when selecting multiple time periods in the solution. This depends on whether the overlay holds event values or subject values.

When selecting multiple time periods, one expects event values to be aggregate but only the latest subject value to be shown. The platform generalizes this split with two options for the time model. Use:

  • Each value equals a period for event values.
  • Each value equals an interval for subject values.

An overlay value equals a period when it represents an event, such as the Expenses overlay, which represents the aggregated values of expense events. These values are valid for an instance but the platform displays them for the period of the granularity of the overlay.

An overlay value equals an interval when it represents a subject, such as the Engagement overlay, which represents the aggregated values of engagement for the Employee subject. These values represent the state of a subject and is valid over an interval.

Aggregation

There are two options for overlay aggregation: rollup and lookup. The types define how the values aggregate in a hierarchy.

  • Rollup: Non-leaf intersections in the overlay are derived from their descendants. Select rollup if the values can be aggregated.
  • Lookup: Every intersection in the overlay has a value that is individually provided and retrieved. Select lookup if the values cannot be aggregated.

Example:  

The Engagement overlay has "lookup" aggregation because individual records exist for every intersection in the overlay. Engagement data cannot be rolled up since the combined value is not a sum of the subgroups.

Contrastingly, the Revenue overlay is "rollup" aggregation because data is derived from descendants, depending on the data schema.

Overlay category

The overlay category defines the type of data for the overlay. For this setting, refer to the following overlay categories and their definitions to choose the one you need.

  • Business outcome: Defines KPI data for historical or correlation analysis.
  • Plan/budget: Defines future goals or plans.
  • External benchmark: Defines known values that are externally collected, government-provided, or internally generated.
  • Visier Benchmark: Defines aggregated data provided by Visier that is appended to the tenant data version. Only applicable to Visier-generated overlays.
  • Other: No category is defined.

Data version settings

Visier allows each analytic object to override the globally-defined end date. The end date specifies the range of data that will be loaded into the analytic object.

If the default is used, the global settings specified in the data version are used. If the default toggle is disabled, ensure that overrides are enabled in the data version settings in Data > Data Version Management.

Default metric

The default metric associated with an analytic object is used to generate system alerts and prevent an empty state for charts when your users switch between dimensions that have no relationship to the metric.

If enabled on a subject, default metric allows you to view the subject's history in Detailed View.

After onboarding data, the default metric is an easy way to quickly verify that the data for an object was loaded as intended. For this setting, select a metric that will act as the default metric for the object in visualizations and will be available as a data overview in the studio experience dashboard.

Example:  

The Employee subject's default metric is Headcount. Because Headcount is a default metric for Employee, the system generates an alert for Headcount to ensure its values remain consistent and expected. When new employee data is loaded, the Headcount metric can be viewed in the dashboard as a quick way to discern if the data is accurate.

Support value property

The support value property is an optional setting for benchmark overlays. A support property must be defined in the overlay to use best-fit functionality with benchmark values. This works as a tie breaker if multiple slices have the same number of valid records. The best fit works best with base metrics on lookup overlays and is thus optional for rollup overlays.

An overlay with a support value property set will return the most specific population—that being the smallest value of the support value property. For this setting, select a benchmark property to be the support value property.