# Visualization Blocks

> Visualization blocks are the charts and tables on a dashboard, with built-in support for AI follow-up questions, cross-filtering, and interactive drill-downs.

Visualization blocks (charts, tables) are key components that help you tell the story on your dashboards. They're the primary way to present data findings and enable interactive exploration.

## Creating Visualization Blocks

You have three ways to create visualization blocks:

![](https://media.holistics.io/e01ea622-canvas-tools-panel-viz-block.png)

**Create Directly in Dashboard**: Build visualization blocks directly on your dashboard using the canvas tool panel.

**[Save from Dataset exploration](/docs/data-exploration)**: Explore your dataset first, build your chart, then save it to a dashboard. 

**[Save from AI conversation](/docs/ai/capabilities)**: Ask questions about your data using the AI chat, generate visualizations, then save them to your dashboard. 

## Using Visualization Blocks

### Present Data and Insights

Use visualization blocks to:
- **Highlight key metrics** with KPI cards and scorecards
- **Show trends over time** with line and area charts
- **Compare categories** with bar and column charts
- **Display distributions** with pie charts and histograms
- **Reveal relationships** with scatter plots and bubble charts

Choose from a wide variety of [chart types](/docs/visualizations) to match your data and message.

### Follow Up with AI

Users can click on any visualization block to ask questions and get AI-powered insights about the data they're viewing. The AI understands the context of your chart and can help uncover patterns, explain anomalies, or suggest next steps.

<VideoPlayer src="https://cdn.holistics.io/product/ai-explore-dashboards-with-ai-20250917-812.mp4" autoPlay={true} />

### Enable Interactive Exploration

Visualization blocks aren't static - users can interact with them to dig deeper:

- **Break down data** by adding new dimensions on the fly
- **Drill down** into specific data points to see underlying details
- **Filter across the dashboard** by clicking on data points (cross-filtering)
- **Drill through** to related dashboards for deeper analysis
- **View underlying data** to see the raw records behind any chart

Learn more about [Dashboard Interactions](/docs/interactions/interact-with-canvas-dashboard).

## Related Topics

- [Data Exploration](/docs/data-exploration)
- [Chart Types](/docs/visualizations)
- [Canvas Dashboards](/docs/dashboards)
- [Dashboard Interactions](/docs/interactions/interact-with-canvas-dashboard)