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Small multiples repeat one chart once per value of a dimension, laying the copies out in a grid. Instead of a single plot with a dozen overlapping series, you get a dozen small panels that can be read and compared at a glance. It is a setting on an existing chart, not a chart type of its own: a bar, line, area, or scatter chart stays that chart and simply gets drawn per panel.

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Splitting a chart into panels

The Small multiples section appears in the Fields tab for bar, line, area, and scatter charts. Pick a dimension in Split by and the chart is replaced by one panel per value of that dimension. Clearing the picker returns the chart to a single plot. Only dimensions are offered. Splitting by a measure is not supported — a measure has no discrete values to make panels from.

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Options

These options appear once a Split by dimension is chosen.

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Shared vs. independent axis scales

Every panel is labelled with its own x and y axis either way. What the setting changes is the scale those axes are drawn against. Shared is the default, and it is usually what makes small multiples worth using: every panel is drawn against the same scale, so the panels are directly comparable and a taller bar really does mean a bigger number. Switch to Independent when the question is about the shape of each series rather than its magnitude — “what does each warehouse’s weekly pattern look like”, where one high-volume warehouse would otherwise flatten every other panel to a straight line.

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Max panels

Splitting by a high-cardinality dimension would otherwise draw hundreds of panels, each too small to read. Max panels bounds that, defaulting to 12. When a dimension has more values than the cap, the chart draws the first N in the current sort order and reports how many are hidden. Raising the cap draws more panels; the underlying query is unaffected either way, so no data is lost. Sorting interacts with the cap: with Sort panels by set to a measure and a descending order, the cap keeps the top N by that measure — which is usually the more useful set than the first N alphabetically.

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Interaction with other settings

Every other chart setting continues to apply, and applies to all panels at once — axis titles and formats, colors and palettes, data labels, tooltips, and reference lines are configured once and drawn in each panel. A legend is shared across the grid rather than repeated per panel. Clicking a legend entry hides that series in every panel.

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Limitations

  • One split dimension. A single grid axis, wrapped into rows by the Columns setting. Splitting by two dimensions at once (a row × column matrix) is not supported.
  • Cartesian charts only. Bar, line, area, and scatter. Pie, table, KPI, heatmap, map, and HTML charts cannot be split.
  • Panel title styling is a visibility toggle; font, size, and color are not configurable.