Power BI: Risers & Fallers

• How to use this page

• Key points

• Use case

How to use this page

Setting your time period

In the page inputs at the top right, select the period you want to analyse. The changes shown in the table are automatically calculated by comparing to the period directly before your selection, so if you select June, it compares to May. Select a full year, and it compares to the previous year. Select a quarter, and it compares to the previous quarter. You don't need to select the comparison period yourself; the logic is consistent and automatic.

If you want to compare non-sequential periods, use the Customised Comparison page instead.

You can also set a minimum volume threshold to filter out themes that have only been mentioned once or twice. This keeps your table focused on the themes that matter for understanding your key trends.

Understanding the table

The table shows all your themes with the following columns:

• Theme name
• Category it belongs to
• Volume in your selected period
• Sentiment score
• Change in volume from the previous period (with + or – indicators)
• Change in sentiment from the previous period

You may occasionally see empty cells in the volume percentage column. This happens when a theme had zero comments in the previous period, which means you're looking at a new or emerging theme.

The volume percentage change is calculated relative to that theme's own previous volume, not as a proportion of your whole dataset. So a theme that had 10 comments last month and now has 20 shows as a 100% increase, even if it's still relatively small overall.

Sorting the table

Click any column header to sort the data. Two sorting approaches are particularly useful:

• Sort by volume change to see which themes have grown the most compared to the previous period. A significant jump is worth investigating.
• Sort by sentiment change to see which themes have improved or declined the most in how positively customers are talking about them.

The most useful signal to look for is a theme that has both fallen in sentiment and risen in volume, more people talking about something, and being more negative about it. That combination is often your biggest red flag and a good indicator of where to prioritise attention.

Filtering by category

Use the page inputs to select a specific category, for example, Maintenance and Repairs, and the table filters to show only themes within that area. This is particularly helpful when reporting to a specific service team, as you can quickly show them what's changed within their remit.

Using the line graphs

Below the table, line graphs show trends over time. Click on any theme in the table and the graphs update to show how that theme has performed across the full time period in your data. You'll see separate graphs for volume, percentage of total volume, sentiment, and your KPI.

The percentage of total volume graph is particularly useful, it shows the selected theme as a proportion of your whole dataset over time, rather than just its raw volume. This helps you understand whether something is becoming a bigger issue relative to everything else your customers are talking about.

The sentiment and KPI graphs also show a line representing all themes combined (the solid line), alongside a dashed line for your selected theme. This gives you context, you can see whether the theme is performing better or worse than your overall average.

Key points

• Purpose: Identify themes that have changed in volume or sentiment between time periods to spot emerging issues or improvements.

• Automatic comparison: Always compares your selected period to the period directly before it (month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year).

• Volume percentage calculation: Shows increase or decrease relative to that theme's own previous volume, not as a proportion of total data.

• Sorting capability: Click column headers to reorder by volume, sentiment, or change percentages.

• Category filtering: Focus analysis on specific theme categories relevant to particular service areas.

• Minimum volume threshold: Set a minimum so only themes mentioned more than a given number of times appear in the table.

• Line graphs: Click any theme in the table to see its trend over time with context against overall performance.

• Percent of volume view: Understand themes as a proportion of total feedback to assess relative significance.

• Compare to the average: The sentiment and KPI graphs show a grey line representing all themes combined, so you can see whether a selected theme is performing better or worse than your overall average

• Drill-through: Right-click on any theme to access the underlying verbatim responses.

Use case

Your top themes month-on-month are likely fairly consistent, repairs, communication, and customer service, for example, probably come up every month. That's useful context, but what's often more useful is understanding what's getting better or worse compared to last month.

With Risers & Fallers, you can sort your themes in different ways to bring up different stories. Sort by volume percentage to show what's growing fastest proportionally. Sort by sentiment change to show what's getting more negative.

To identify red flags, look for themes with both falling sentiment and rising volume, these are likely to be your priority issues.

    ✍️ Article written by: Zoe, Customer Success Manager 

Still in need of some help? Give us an email on support@wordnerds.ai or reach out to your CSM directly.