Gist is built around several key concepts that are useful to understand in order to get the most out of the platform:
- Teams
- Users
- Visualizations
- Datasets
- Fields
- Filters
- Views
- Insights
- Articles
1. Teams
When you sign up for Gist you create a team. This is where all of your visualizations, insights and articles are saved, and you can share all of your content on your team page for others to see. To view your team page, click "View Team Page" in the left side panel of the dashboard, or go straight to your unique web address in your browser (teamname.gistapp.com). Clicking the tabs "Visualizations", "Insights" and "Articles" will display each content category.
2. Users
You can also add other users to join your team. Users can be invited as Editors or Viewers for your visualizations, and once invited, they can be given Admin access. Give Viewer users access to view private visualizations; give Editor users access to edit specific visualizations. Administrators have the ability to see all users in a team, as well as manage team settings and user accounts.
3. Visualizations
Visualizations are the main content type in Gist. A visualization consists of a one or more views of a dataset, from the Gallery and Grouped Gallery to the Bar Chart and Scatterplot views, linked by filters that span across all views. Visualizations can be public or private, and they can be embedded on external sites.
4. Datasets
Datasets are the basis of any visualization. They can be uploaded as CSV or TSV files, or imported via connecting to an API, a Google Sheet, or another 3rd party integration on the “Source” tab of a visualization in Gist. Gist accepts tabular data and hierarchical data (with certain limitations).
5. Fields
Fields map to the columns of a spreadsheet for tabular data (or the keys from key/value pairs in hierarchical data). Fields populate filters as well as view controls.
6. Filters
Fields can be set up to become filters, which can be used to narrow down the data shown in your visualization. Filters can be based on categories (for example "Male"/"Female"), but they can also be set to numeric and date ranges. Category filters can be set to single or multi-select.
7. Views
Views visualize your data in a variety of ways, from unit visualizations (Gallery, Grouped Gallery, Scatterplot, etc.) to aggregate visualizations (Bar Chart, Pie Chart, Area Graph). Any visualization can include multiple views that allow users to look at the data from different perspectives.
8. Insights
Insights are snapshots of a particular view and state in a visualization, accompanied by a title and a description. Insights can be created by any registered user with viewing access to a visualization, and after they have been created they appear on the corresponding team page. Insights can be edited and moderated using the “Insights” tab in the dashboard.
9. Articles
In Gist, you can create and publish articles to add context and narrative for one or more visualizations. Visualizations can be embedded in articles, and it is possible to add more than one to tell a larger story.