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How-to guidesIntermediate8 min read· Published on October 19, 2026

Sankey Plume: 12 how-to guides

Classic Source → Destination Sankey, income statement, cycles, category order, conversion rates, color by a measure, one line per customer, highlighted flows.

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These recipes start from a Sankey Plume that is already in place. If that is not the case, start with getting started: the examples reuse its data. Features marked ★ are premium: they work without a license, with a watermark.

How do I build a classic "Source → Destination" Sankey?

Your data already says "from where to where, and how much": one row per move from one page to the next, like in the Microsoft Sankey.

  1. Modeling › New table, paste:
Journey =
DATATABLE (
    "Page", STRING,
    "Next page", STRING,
    "Visits", INTEGER,
    {
        { "Home", "Catalog", 500 },
        { "Home", "Search", 300 },
        { "Home", "Exit", 200 },
        { "Search", "Catalog", 200 },
        { "Search", "Exit", 100 },
        { "Catalog", "Cart", 400 },
        { "Catalog", "Exit", 300 },
        { "Cart", "Order", 250 },
        { "Cart", "Exit", 150 }
    }
)
  1. Create the measure Visit count = SUM ( Journey[Visits] ).
  2. Insert a new Sankey Plume: drag Page to Source, Next page to Destination and Visit count to Value or weight (optional).

Result: Home on the left, Search, Catalog and Cart in the middle, Order and Exit in the last column. Catalog is a single node, fed by Home and by Search. To put every source on the left and every destination on the right, set Format › Layout › Source → Destination to Two columns (origin → destination).

How do I show an income statement, from revenue to net profit?

A budget is a chain: sales make the revenue, which pays the purchases and gives the margin, which pays the costs and gives the profit.

  1. Prepare a table From, To, Amount: Stores › Revenue, Website › Revenue, Revenue › Purchases, Revenue › Gross margin, Gross margin › Salaries, Gross margin › Profit… (the sample report contains the Income statement table).
  2. Drag From to Source, To to Destination, the amount measure to Value or weight (optional).
  3. Format › Layout › Node placement: As early as possible (left), so that Purchases stay next to Gross margin.
  4. Format › Category labels: Content Name, value and %, Percentage of The first column total.
  5. Format › Column headers › Column names (separated by ;): Channels;Revenue;Margin;Costs;Profit.

Result: each item shows its amount and its share of revenue ("Net profit 630 · 7.9%").

How do I show a flow going back (a cycle)?

Some visitors go back from the Cart to the Catalog: a flow returns to an earlier column.

  1. Add the row { "Cart", "Catalog", 100 } to the Journey table.
  2. Nothing to set: the flow is drawn as a loop under the chart, from the right of Cart to the left of Catalog. Its tooltip says "Cycle: goes back to an earlier column".
  3. To leave it out: Format › Layout › Flows going backward (cycles) = Hide.

Result: the journey stays readable from left to right, and the return is visible without crossing the other flows. A row from a page to itself (a refresh) is drawn the same way.

How do I measure migrations in revenue rather than in number of customers?

Ten small customers moving up weigh less than one large customer leaving: revenue shows what matters to the business.

  1. Remove Customer count from the Value or weight (optional) field.
  2. Drag Customer revenue to Value or weight (optional).
  3. In the Category labels card, type € in Suffix (e.g. €).

Result: the thickness of the flows becomes revenue. The flow of C001 (Silver 2024 › Gold 2025) gets wider at the destination, because this customer went from 2,150 to 5,300.

How do I put the segments in the order Gold, Silver, Bronze?

By default, the largest categories are on top; Alphabetical would give Bronze, Gold, Silver. Two ways to set a business order that no longer changes when you filter:

  1. Format › Categories (nodes) › Category order: Custom (list or drag the nodes).
  2. In Custom order (separated by ;), type Gold; Silver; Bronze. Case and spaces do not matter; categories missing from the list come next, largest first.
  3. The other way, with the mouse: in edit mode, drag the Gold block to the top of its column. The new order is saved in the report and the list fills in by itself.

Result: Gold on top, Bronze at the bottom, in every column. A sort column in the model also works: Sort by column, then Data order (Sort by column).

How do I show the conversion rate on each flow?

In a journey, the question is "what share of Catalog visitors goes to the Cart?".

  1. Format › Flow labels: turn on Show.
  2. Content: % of the origin node (conversion) (or Value and % of the origin node).

Result: with the Journey table of the first recipe (without the return), "57%" on Catalog › Cart (400 visits out of 700) and "63%" on Cart › Order (250 out of 400). Only flows thick enough for the text carry a label; the tooltip gives the details for the others ("Share of the origin category", "Share of total").

How do I color the flows by a measure (margin rate, bounce rate)?

Thickness says "how much"; color can say "is it good?".

  1. Drag a measure, for example Bounce rate, to the Flow color (measure) field.
  2. Format › Flows › Flow color: By the « Flow color » field.
  3. To change the colors: Format › Style › Gradient palette (or Reverse gradients).

Result: each flow takes a color from the gradient, from the smallest to the largest value; a small legend under the chart gives the minimum and the maximum.

How do I show the retention rate and bring out the customers who change segment? ★

Management wants a simple figure ("what share of our customers keeps its segment?") and to see the moves without being distracted by the large stable flows.

  1. In the Entries, exits and retention card, turn on Retention rate between columns ★, Retention = Same category in the next column.
  2. In the Flows card, turn on Emphasize category changes ★ and set Flow color to Destination category.

Result: a percentage is written between each pair of columns (with the sample data, only one customer out of the four of 2023 keeps its segment in 2024: C002, Gold), and the Gold › Gold flow of C002 fades; the upgrades and downgrades stand out. Still present in the next column measures loyalty, whatever the segment.

How do I tell a story: one highlighted category, from top to bottom? ★

For a printed report or a PDF export, hovering is not enough: the path of a category has to stay visible.

  1. Format › Flows › Highlight the category ★: type Gold (or several names separated by ;).
  2. If the page is tall or the names are long: Format › Layout › Orientation = Vertical (top to bottom) ★.

Result: only the flows going through Gold keep their color, from the first column to the last; the others are gray. In Source → Destination, everything that leads to the category and everything that leaves it stays in color.

How do I draw one line per customer (or per student)? ★

When headcounts are small (a class, a city council, a few hundred customers), one line per person reads better than a ribbon: you can count the lines and see each individual.

  1. Leave Value empty (each customer counts as 1), or use a measure that gives whole numbers, such as Customer count.
  2. Format › Flows › Flow drawing: Threads: one line per unit ★.
  3. If the lines are too tight or too thin: Thread width (px, 0 = auto), for example 1, or make the visual taller.

Result: each flow becomes a bundle of thin lines, one per customer (a flow of 64 customers = 64 lines). Hovering, clicking and tooltips work across the whole width of the bundle. With decimal values (revenue) or more than 3,000 lines, the visual keeps solid ribbons and shows the "Threads unavailable" warning icon.

How do I highlight a specific flow or journey? ★

You want a printed report to show the upgrades (Silver to Gold, Bronze to Silver) while the rest steps back.

  1. Format › Flows › Highlight flows ★: type Silver > Gold; Bronze > Silver. The > sign separates the origin from the destination; the semicolon separates two flows. Case does not matter.
  2. Highlight color: One color per highlighted name, to tell the two flows apart.
  3. To set how far the other flows step back: Dimmed flows: opacity (% of opacity), lower to fade them more.
  4. To follow an exact journey over several columns, write a chain: Bronze > Silver > Gold (the customers who went from Bronze to Silver, then from Silver to Gold).

Result: only the customers of the named flows keep their color, along their whole path; the other flows are gray. In Source → Destination, only the named flow stays in color. The highlight stays visible in PDF exports.

How do I list the customers of a flow?

You see a Gold › Silver flow and want to know who these customers are.

  1. Add a standard Table visual to the page with the Customer, Year, Segment columns.
  2. In Sankey Plume, click the Gold (2024) › Silver (2025) flow.
  3. To add a second flow to the selection, hold Ctrl and click it.

Result: the table now shows only the customers of the selected flows (here C002). This click selects individuals only in "over time" mode; in stages mode, it selects the pair of categories, in Source → Destination the source, destination pair.

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