Data Bars in the Preview Table and Matrix Visualisations

It's becoming increasingly hard to ignore the new table and matrix visuals, which have been lurking in preview mode for some months now.  Not only do they support drill-down, but now you can create data bars too:

Data bars can display from left to right (the default), or - as here - right to left.

Getting at the Data Bars

Like conditional formatting, data bars are unusual in that you can get at them from either the field well or the formatting toolbar.  So you can right-click on a field in the field well:

Here I right-clicked in the numerical Sales field.

But you can also use the Format toolbar:

You can turn data bars on in the Conditional formatting section of the Format toolbar.  Note that you have to click on the Advanced controls link to format data bars (Microsoft obviously decided this toolbar is getting too cluttered).

Customising your Data Bars

For now, there's not a huge amount you can do to configure your data bars:

Here I've set the minimum amount to be 0, rather than the minimum sales value, and I've changed the default colour scheme.

I suspect Microsoft will add to this dialog box over the coming months.