Chart · reads metric
Heatmap
Density over two axes.
One measure over time or across a category.
What it does
Behaviours, not fields. Choosing between two modules is choosing between these.
Intensity across two dimensions, which answers when rather than how many.
Staffing and opening decisions fall straight out of the pattern.
A total cannot express this, and a line chart flattens it.
How it works
- 1
Activity is bucketed across two dimensions, normally day against hour.
- 2
The peak and the quiet period are derived from the buckets rather than judged.
- 3
The pattern, not the total, is what a rota or an opening-hours decision needs.
- 4
It updates as new activity arrives, so a shifting pattern is visible.
Best for
Trends and comparisons.
Not the right choice for
Exact values — pair it with a table.
What a row holds
Every field, and what the agent listens for to fill it — which is the difference between a page you type into and one that fills itself.
| Field | Type | Filled from |
|---|---|---|
| Dayrequired | text | The first dimension, usually a weekday. |
| Peak hourrequired | text | When the concentration is highest. |
| Volumerequired | number | How much, at the peak. |
| Quietest | text | The other end, which is what makes a staffing decision possible. |
What it does not do
A module chosen for something it cannot do costs more than one that was never offered.
- Two dimensions only. A third needs a separate view.
- Needs enough volume to have a pattern; a week of thin data produces noise that looks like signal.
- No seasonality separation, so a holiday week distorts the picture and is not flagged.
- Buckets are fixed at hour and day; finer or coarser is not configurable.
Before it works
What you have to provide, if anything.
- Needs timestamped activity — bookings, check-ins, orders.
- Give it several weeks before acting on it. One week is an anecdote.
In practice
A café deciding weekend staffing.
“When are we actually busy?”
What the agent built
A day-by-hour picture of volume with peaks and quiet periods.
What changed
Saturday peaked two hours later than weekdays. The rota changed and the 8am Saturday shift was dropped.
Better with
These do a different job on the same data. An agent can have all of them.
Numbers move over time and the movement matters more than any single reading.
Customers reserve time, capacity is finite, and double-booking would be a real problem.
Presence needs recording at the moment it happens, for safety, billing or simple accountability.
Questions
What data does the Heatmap page use?
It reads metric records the agent has collected. Density over two axes. Nothing has to be imported first — the page appears once there is something to show.
Do I have to build or configure it?
No. You describe what you need in a sentence and the agent chooses the view and fills it. Custom pages exist for the cases no built-in view covers, and those are reviewed before they go live.
When is a chart the wrong choice?
Exact values — pair it with a table. It is best for: trends and comparisons.
Does it stay up to date?
Yes. The page is a view over the data rather than a copy of it, so anything the agent learns afterwards shows up without a rebuild or a re-import.
More in Analytics & data
Orders today
23
20
Unanswered messages
4
0
Stock alerts
2
0
Overdue invoices
1
0
KPI page
Headline numbers.
Metrics dashboard
Charts of trends.
Monthly performance
August · Sent 2 Sep · Maison Lauret
Quarterly review
Q2 · Sent 8 Jul · Board
Monthly performance
September · Draft · —
Stock and wastage
August · Sent 4 Sep · Internal
Reports
Generated summaries.
Data table
Uploaded rows (elastic data).
Ask for it in a sentence
You do not configure this page. You tell your agent what you need and it builds it from what it has already collected.
Build your agent free