Sharing insights with data storytelling

Data storytelling provides a way to share your data insights, whether they belong to a larger discussion or the main topic.

The purpose of data storytelling is to turn data discoveries into a story. Emphasizing important elements helps create convincing stories and supports stakeholders in decision-making.

Data storytelling lets you combine reporting, presentation, and exploratory analysis techniques to create and collaborate. You take snapshots of your discovered data to use in stories composed of slides. Snapshots can be enhanced with effects. This lets you emphasize the data insights you want your audience to focus on.

As you tell the story, you can answer questions by switching to a snapshots source and accessing live data. This guides your story to new directions, triggering new conversations and deeper insights.

Storytelling becomes interactive by inserting live data sheets in slides, and making selections while presenting.

For a visual demo about storytelling, see Sharing insights with data storytelling.

The story

In data storytelling, you use a story to collect and present insights and ideas to your audience. A story is presented as a timeline of slides. It can be based on traditional data storytelling structures, such as a three-act play or a hero’s journey.

Stories are contained within an app. A story is connected to its app, so you can return to the live data anytime, to discover new and hidden stories.

To build a story you use time-based snapshots of your data visualizations and live data sheets and place them on the story’s timeline.

You can, for instance add text and shapes, put emphasis on certain insights with visual effects, apply styling, and so on, to make the story compelling and engaging, and its purpose very clear.

For more information, see Working with stories, Making stories compelling and Downloading a story.

Snapshots

A snapshot is a graphical representation of the state (type and data) of a data object at a certain point in time that you can use when you build stories. The snapshot you take is a copy of the state. This means that the state of the snapshot does not change when the state of the corresponding data object gets updated.

Snapshots capture individual objects on a sheet during the analysis process. They store the visualization and data as you see it at that time enabling you to use them at a later point in time to tell a story. Each snapshot contains a bookmark back to the original context so that you quickly get access to the live data.

When you take a snapshot you can make an annotation for your snapshot. The annotation helps you distinguish between the different snapshots in the snapshot library when you build your story. The annotation is not visible when you play the story.

For more information, see Collecting insights for stories using snapshots.

Live data sheets

Using live data sheets in stories you can make sheet selections while playing the story. This way, you can show your insights without going to the app itself.

Playing a story, you can make and reset selections in the live data sheets. It works the same way as in any sheet, in sheet view.

For more information, see Adding a live data sheet to a slide and Selecting in a live data sheet.