Building Sankey Charts- Storytelling with Data

What are Sankey charts and how to create them in Tableau

Image Source: https://dribbble.com/shots/2107741-Alooma-Sankey/attachments/2107741?mode=media

“ Stories are just data with Soul “ — Dr. Brene Brown

What is a Sankey Chart?

Sankey chart named after the Irish Captain Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey, who used this type of visual in 1898 shown below representing the energy efficiency of a steam engine.

Sankey diagrams are essentially, flow diagrams, which highlight flows in a system. Flows could be energy, costs, materials etc, depending on your use case. They are instrumental in drawing the viewers’ attention to chief contributors of the flow.

Below is an example of what a Sankey diagram looks like

Image Source: https://www.ifu.com/en/e-sankey/energy-management/

The chart above shows a Sankey diagram that represents total collective energy and how it flows and is distributed into different systems in a factory. The thickness or width of the bands are indicative of the amount of energy distribution into each of the three forms, Natural gas, District heat and Power Supply.