Circular Dendrogram

Downloading and Installing

Qlik Sense Desktop

To install the Circular Dendrogram Extension in Qlik Sense Desktop, do the following:

1. Download Circular Dendrogram Extension for Qlik Sense.
2. Extract the archive.
3. Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to the Qlik Sense Extensions directory:  
   ..\Users\<UserName>\Documents\Qlik\Sense\Extensions.
4. Copy the anychart-4x-circular-dendrogram folder to the Extensions directory.
5. Relaunch Qlik Sense Desktop.

Qlik Sense Server

To install the Circular Dendrogram Extension on a Qlik Sense server, do the following:

1. Download Circular Dendrogram Extension for Qlik Sense.
2. Open Qlik Management Console (QMC): https://<QPS server name>/qmc
3. Select Extensions on the QMC start page or from the Start drop-down menu.
4. Click Import in the action bar.
5. In the dialog, select the downloaded archive. Leave the password area blank.
6. Click Open in the file explorer window.
7. Click Import.

Qlik Sense Cloud

To install the Circular Dendrogram Extension in Qlik Sense Cloud, do the following:

1. Download Circular Dendrogram Extension for Qlik Sense Cloud.
2. Extract the archive.
3. Access the Management Console:
   • add /console to your tenant address: https://<your tenant address>/console
   • or use the navigation link Administration under the user profile in the hub

1. Go to the Extensions page and click Add.
2. In the dialog, select the archive with the extension – for example, anychart-4x-circular-dendrogram.zip.
3. Click Add.
4. Repeat the steps above to add other extensions.
5. In the Management Console, go to the Content Security Policy section and click Add.
6. In the dialog, give the Content Security Policy a name – for example, AnyChart.
7. Type the address of the origin server: qlik.anychart.com
8. Select the following directives:
   • connect-src
   • font-src
   • img-src
   • script-src
   • style-src

1. Click Add.

Overview

The Circular Dendrogram extension visualizes hierarchical relationships as a radial tree. Branches fan out from an empty centre to leaves on the perimeter, and edges connect each parent level to its children. It is the go-to chart for answering questions like “what does this organisation look like?”, “how is this taxonomy structured?”, or “which sub-trees carry the most weight?”

Common use cases include organisational charts, product or service taxonomies, file-system or folder hierarchies, biological classification, and any data set that decomposes into nested categories.

Each Qlik dimension becomes one level in the hierarchy, ordered outermost-to-innermost (centre to perimeter). The measure sizes the leaves. Each top-level branch is rendered in a distinct colour from a categorical palette, edges are thin grey lines, and labels are placed horizontally on the perimeter.

Read Quick Start and Dimensions and Measures to learn how to add a Circular Dendrogram and configure its data.

Quick Start

Follow these steps to add a Circular Dendrogram to a sheet and configure its data.

Step 1: Add an Empty Visualization

In the assets panel, go to Custom objects > AnyChart and drag an empty Circular Dendrogram chart to the sheet.

Step 2: Add Dimensions

Open the properties panel and go to Data > Dimensions. Click Add dimension and select a dimension. The chart needs at least two dimensions and supports up to ten. Each dimension becomes one level in the hierarchy, ordered outermost-to-innermost: the first dimension drives the top-level branches, the second drives the next level, and so on down to the leaves on the perimeter.

For an organisational chart, you might add Division, Department, and Service in that order.

Step 3: Add a Measure

Go to Data > Measures. Click Add measure and select a measure — for example, Sum(Headcount). The Circular Dendrogram needs one measure to drive leaf sizing: leaf-node radius scales by square root against the root total, so bigger leaves carry larger values.

Step 4: Customize

With the chart selected, open the properties panel and use the Labels, Colours, Presentation, Grouping, and Interactivity sections to tune the chart. See each section below for the available controls.

Dimensions and Measures

Each Qlik dimension becomes one level in the hierarchy, ordered outermost-to-innermost. The measure sizes the leaves.

Dimensions

Go to Data > Dimensions in the properties panel and click Add dimension to add each level of your hierarchy. The Circular Dendrogram requires at least two dimensions and supports up to ten.

The order of the dimensions defines the path from the centre to the leaves: the first dimension is the topmost level, the last is the leaf level. Drag dimensions to reorder them.

Three to five dimensions is the sweet spot for readability. Two dimensions produces a simple chart (consider a treemap or a bar chart instead). More than six can make the perimeter dense unless your dataset has fewer leaves overall.

Measures

Go to Data > Measures and click Add measure to add a measure. The Circular Dendrogram requires exactly one measure.

Leaf-node radius scales by square root against the root total — bigger leaves carry larger values.

Labels

The Circular Dendrogram has independent controls for leaf labels (perimeter) and inner-node labels. All label settings are in Properties > Labels.

Leaf and Inner-Node Labels

Two switches control which labels are drawn:

• Show leaf labels – on by default. Turns the perimeter labels on or off.
• Show inner-node labels – on by default. Turns labels on the intermediate (non-leaf) nodes on or off.

Inner-node labels render at 75 % of the leaf-label font size, clamped to a 5-pixel minimum floor for legibility.

Label Size and Offset

The Size (px) slider sets the font size for leaf labels. The range is 5 to 32 pixels with a default of 10. Inner-node labels follow this size at 75 %, clamped to the 5-pixel floor.

The Leaf label offset (px) input controls the gap between each leaf node and the start of its label. The range is 0 to 32 pixels with a default of 6.

Label Density

The Label density (%) slider controls how aggressively perimeter labels are pruned to avoid overlap. The range is 0 to 100 in steps of 5, with a default of 50.

At 0, the renderer uses strict pruning — no two adjacent leaf labels overlap vertically. This produces the cleanest set of perimeter labels. At 100, no pruning is applied — every leaf shows its label, even if labels visually overlap. At 50, roughly twice as many labels are drawn as at strict, while still suppressing the worst overlaps.

Label Content

The Label content dropdown controls what each label displays:

• Dimension name (default) – the dimension value itself, e.g. Dr. Henry Walker.
• Dimension + value – name followed by the formatted measure, e.g. Dr. Henry Walker: 1.
• Dimension + % of total – name followed by share of root, e.g. Dr. Henry Walker: 0.5%.
• Value only – the measure or percentage on its own.

The same content mode applies to both leaf and inner-node labels.

Number Formatting

Whenever a label includes the measure value, the value respects the measure's Qlik number format (qNumFormat) and the app's locale separators (qLocaleInfo). A measure formatted as $#,##0.00 renders as $1,500,000.00 in the label, matching the same value in tooltips. RU and EU server installs see locale-correct thousand and decimal separators automatically.

The Dimension + % of total mode follows the same rule when the measure is configured as a percentage in Qlik (e.g. #,##0.0%); otherwise the percentage falls back to a one-decimal-place format.

Label Colour

The Text colour picker sets the fill colour for both leaf and inner-node labels. The default is dark grey (#333333).

Colours

The Circular Dendrogram has independent controls for node colours and edge styling. All colour settings are in Properties > Colours.

Colour By

The Colour by dropdown controls how nodes and edges are coloured:

• By top-level branch (default) – each top-level branch — each group of nodes radiating from the chart's centre — is rendered in a distinct colour from a categorical palette. Descendants inherit their branch's colour. Edges are thin grey (#bdbdbd) so the leaf colours carry the categorical signal.
• Single colour – all nodes use one colour and all edges another. When this mode is selected, the Node fill and Edge stroke colour pickers appear below.

Edge Styling

Two sliders control how edges render:

• Edge thickness – stroke width in pixels for every edge. Range 0.5 to 4 px in 0.5 px steps. Default 1 px. The control's label updates live as you drag.
• Edge opacity – transparency of the edges. Range 0.1 to 1.0 in 0.1 steps. Default 1.0 (fully opaque). The control's label updates live.

Lower opacity is useful when many leaves cause edges to compete visually with the leaf colours. Higher opacity emphasises the structure.

Presentation

Layout, centre styling, and background zones are configured in Properties > Presentation.

Start Angle

The Start angle slider rotates the entire chart around its centre. Range 0° to 359° in 1° steps. Default 0°. Useful for aligning a specific branch with the top of the chart, or for matching the chart to a label or callout placed elsewhere on the sheet. The control's label updates live as you drag.

Arc Extent

The Arc extent dropdown controls how much of the circle the chart consumes:

• 360° — full circle (default) – the chart occupies the full circle.
• 270° — three-quarter – the chart occupies three quarters, with the gap at the bottom. The arc is auto-centred so the top of the chart sits at the top of the cell.
• 180° — semi-circle – the chart occupies the top half only, like a fan or a dome.

Partial-arc modes are useful for charts that sit in narrow cells or for stylistic emphasis on the top half of the hierarchy. The Start angle slider applies on top of the auto-centring.

Centre Circle

The Centre circle switch toggles an explicit circle drawn at the geometric centre of the chart. Off by default. When the centre circle is on, two additional controls appear:

• Centre circle radius – size in pixels. Range 8 to 120 px. Default 32 px. At the default value, the radius adapts to the chart's available space and grows to fully contain the centre label when one is set. Move the slider away from 32 to lock the radius.
• Centre circle colour – fill colour. Default light grey (#e8e8e8).

When the centre circle is on, it also becomes an interactive node — hover for a tooltip with the chart-wide totals, click to clear any active selection. See Interactivity.

Centre Label

The Centre label switch toggles a text overlay at the geometric centre of the chart. Off by default. When the centre label is on, three additional controls appear:

• Centre label text – the text to render. Accepts a literal string or a Qlik expression. Multi-line via \n.
• Centre label size – font size in pixels. Range 9 to 36 px. Default 14 px.
• Centre label colour – fill colour. Default dark grey (#333333).

The centre label can be used independently of the centre circle, but the two are typically configured together. When both are on and the centre circle radius is at its default 32, the circle auto-grows to fully contain the label.

Background Zones

The Background zones switch toggles per-branch wedge tints behind the chart. Off by default.

When on, each top-level branch's angular sector is painted at low opacity using the branch's palette colour, providing a subtle hint of which leaves belong to which branch. During selection, in-scope wedges remain bright while out-of-scope wedges crush down to a neutral grey, reinforcing the breadcrumb chain.

Background zones do not draw in chain mode (see Confirm and Chain Mode) — the radial wedges read as misleading geometry in a linear chain layout.

Grouping

Top-N grouping collapses small branches into a synthetic Others wedge, keeping the chart legible when the data has long tails. Settings are in Properties > Grouping.

• Group small branches – master toggle. Off by default.
• Keep top N – how many branches stay un-grouped. Range 1 to 50. Default 6. Branches outside the top N are merged into a single grey Others (k) wedge, where k is the count of collapsed branches.
• Grouping scope:
  • Group within each branch (default) – the rule applies recursively at each branch level. Each parent independently keeps its top N children and groups the rest.
  • Group at top level – the rule applies at the top level only. Inner branches are not collapsed.

The Others wedge is a synthetic node — hover shows the rolled-up totals, but clicking does not produce a Qlik selection.

Toggling Group small branches on or off preserves the original child order of the surviving branches — the chart does not rotate when you flip the toggle.

Interactivity

Interactivity settings are in Properties > Interactivity.

Tooltips

The Tooltip switch toggles hover tooltips for leaves, edges, and the centre circle. On by default. Tooltips are HTML cards positioned near the cursor and show:

• Leaf hover – the leaf name, the dimension name, and the formatted measure value with percent of total.
• Edge hover – the source and target node names, the dim path, and the rolled-up measure value with percent of total.
• Centre hover (when the centre circle is on) – the chart-wide totals: leaf count and total measure value.

Measure values respect Qlik's number formatting and locale settings — see Number Formatting.

Selection: How Clicking Works

The Selection on click switch toggles click-to-select. On by default.

Clicking a leaf or an inner node adds it to your selection. Multi-select within a single dimension is supported — click another node at the same depth to add it, click again to remove. Switching to a different dimension clears the previous selection.

After clicking, the Qlik confirm/cancel toolbar appears at the top of the chart. Click the green ✓ Confirm to apply the selection — Qlik filters the hypercube to the selected rows and propagates the selection to every other chart on the sheet. Click the red ✕ to cancel without applying.

When the centre circle is enabled, clicking the centre clears any active selection — both the in-progress selection and any applied Qlik selection. See Centre Circle.

Confirm and Chain Mode

After Confirm, the chart renders the applied selection in one of three layouts depending on what was selected:

• Single-leaf selection – the chart re-renders in chain mode: a straight line from the root through each ancestor to the selected leaf. Left-to-right in wide cells, bottom-to-top in tall cells. Each level is a labelled node with straight edges between them. This shows the full path from root to leaf without the rest of the tree.
• Multi-leaf selection with a shared upstream ancestor – the chart re-renders as a radial tree over the filtered rows. The shared chain stays visible as a linear stem from the root up to the divergence point, with the radial tree fanning out from there.
• Multi-leaf selection without a shared ancestor – the chart re-renders as a radial tree over just the filtered rows.

Snapshots and Export

The Circular Dendrogram supports Qlik's standard snapshot and data-export pipelines.

• Snapshot capture – right-click the chart and choose Take snapshot. The snapshot saves the chart's current settings, layout, and selection state so it can be replayed later. License status is captured into the snapshot so a future licence change does not affect a previously captured snapshot.
• Story replay – drag a captured snapshot onto a Story slide. The chart re-renders from the snapshot data.
• Export data – right-click the chart and choose Export > Data. CSV and Excel formats are supported.
• Print – the chart inherits Qlik's standard print pipeline (File > Print or Print to PDF).

Add-ons

The standard Qlik Add-ons accordion contains:

• Calculation condition – a Qlik expression that gates whether the chart computes and renders. When the expression evaluates false, the chart shows the Calculation condition error message instead of computing the hypercube. Useful for gating heavy charts on selection cardinality — for example, Count(distinct StaffID) > 10.
• Calculation condition error message – the copy shown when the condition is false.
• Include zero values – when off, rows whose measure resolves to zero are excluded from the chart.

Appearance

The standard Qlik Appearance accordion contains:

• Show titles – toggle the chart title bar.
• Title, Subtitle, Footnote – standard text or expressions for the chart's title bar.

About

The About section shows the extension display name, the version number, the build date, license status, AnyChart branding, and a link to this documentation page.

Known Limitations

The following limitations apply to v1.0.

• Applied selection renders the filtered subset only – after Confirm, the chart renders against the filtered hypercube. Single-leaf and shared-ancestor selections take chain mode (see Confirm and Chain Mode); branching selections render as a radial tree over just the filtered rows. This matches the cross-filter behaviour of every other Qlik chart on the sheet.
• Branch layout – v1.0 ships with the proportional layout only (branch arc width is proportional to leaf count or measure sum).

Troubleshooting