Work with charts

A chart is a graphical representation of data. Charts are particularly useful for summarising numeric data and showing the relationship between sets of values, called series. For example, a chart can show hours by location, job, or cost centre over three months.

Because a chart presents a picture, it reveals trends that are not as apparent in a table or cross tab. Typically, reports display detail data in a table and summary data in a chart or cross tab, especially if the detail data spans multiple pages. A number of different types of charts are available as described in About charts.

The basic characteristics of a chart are determined in the report design. If you generate an interactive report, you can modify the chart in the following ways:

  • Change the chart type
  • Filter data
  • Format the chart

To select any of these options, select the chart to highlight it, then right-click the chart area to display the context menu containing these options.

To change the chart type:

  1. Select and right-click the chart. Select Change Type.
  2. In the Chart Type glance (also known as a contextual call-out) Provides information and actions in a dialogue box for an item on the screen when the user right-clicks or taps the item., select an option from the available subtypes, then click tap OK.

You can filter chart data in the same way that you apply filters to data in a report column. In a chart, you can filter data on the x-axis or the y-axis. Select and right-click the chart, then select Filter > Filter. See Filter data for more information about filtering.

Complete the steps to create one or more filter conditions, based on which data is displayed on the axes of the chart.

When filtering a Gantt chart, the value set as the task label and the value by which legend items are grouped can impact the filtered data displayed. For example, in a Gantt chart displaying worked hours, if the task label is set to "Country" and the legend is grouped by cost centre, specifying a filter on the "Country" column appears to display data for the selected country. However, because the tasks are aggregated by cost centre, each bar in the Gantt chart contains data aggregated by cost centre for several countries, even though the task label displays the name of a single country specified in the filter condition. So although the filtered data is accurate, it can appear confusing to the user.

Charts include many different visual elements. You can customise the appearance of many of these elements and you can rearrange the layout of the chart.

Some of the formatting for a chart, such as the colours of the bars in a bar chart and the background colour of the chart, are defined in the original report, and cannot be modified. When viewing the report, you can modify the fonts and font sizes of the chart title and axis labels, and the height and width of the chart. You can hide axis labels, place labels at an angle relative to the axis, and hide the legend to move it in relation to the chart. Depending on the type of chart you are working with, you can also transpose the axes in some cases.

A chart organises data points into value sets called series. Series can be of two types:

  • Category Series — Determines what text, numbers, or dates you see on the x-axis.
  • Value Series — Determines the text, numbers, or dates on the y-axis.

A value axis positions data points relative to the axis tick marks. You do not plot text on a value axis. In most charts with axes, the x-axis is the category axis, and the y-axis is the value axis.

The plotting options available for the x- and y-axes can differ in name and function, depending on the chart type. For example, when you modify a meter chart, which has no axes, you define the position of a needle on a dial instead of defining the y-axis. When you modify a pie chart, you define the size of the slices instead of the y-axis.

Using Interactive Viewer, you can change the titles of the axes, modify the scale of the y-axis, and modify the orientation of the labels on the axes. the following table describes these options:

To format a chart:

  1. Select and right-click the chart. Select Format Chart from the context menu.
  2. On Format Chart glance, specify the formatting options.

    Title — Add a title for the chart. If you select Auto, Interactive Viewer automatically generates a chart title based on the data in the chart.

    Label Font — Select the font, size, colour, and background colour of the fonts in the chart. You can also select bold, italic, or underline.

    Width — Width of the chart in the specified units.

    Height — Height of the chart in the specified units.

    Border — Select the style, width, and colour of the border.

    Margin — Change the margins of the chart (in points)

    Flip Axis — Select to transpose the x- and y-axes.

    Use Glass Style — Select this option to show smooth rounded edges for bars or columns in a chart.

    Allow Zoom X

    Allow Zoom Y

    Show Legend — Select the check box to display the legend and clear it to hide the legend.

    Position — If Show Legend is selected, specify the position of the legend relative to the chart.

    Title — Provide a title that appears below the x-axis.

    Label Font — Select the font, size, colour, and background colour of the fonts in the chart. You can also select bold, italic, or underline.

    Show Labels — Select to show x-axis labels. Deselect to hide x-axis labels.

    Labels Angle — If Show Labels is selected, this option places the labels at the specified number of degrees to the x-axis.

    Stagger Labels – This option places the labels in a zigzag arrangement to improve readability.

    Interval — This value on the x-axis is set to 1 by default, which means every value appears. To display alternate values, set Interval to 2.

    Y Axis – Specify the column whose values to display on the y-axis.

    Title — Provide a title that appears to the left of the y-axis.

    Label Font — Select the font, size, colour, and background colour of the fonts in the chart. You can also select bold, italic, or underline.

    Label Font — Select the font, size, colour, and background colour of the fonts in the chart. You can also select bold, italic, or underline.

    Show Labels — Select to show y-axis labels. Deselect to hide y-axis labels.

    Labels Angle — If Show Labels is selected, this option places the labels at the specified number of degrees to the y-axis.

    Min — Type a number that represents the lowest value to display on the y-axis. This number appears at the bottom of the y-axis.

    Max — Type a number that represents the highest value to display on the y-axis. This number appears at the top of the y-axis.

    Step Interval — Type a number that represents the increment between each value.

    3. In the Export Content glance:

    1. Select the export format (Excel, PDF, PostScript, PowerPoint, Word, or XHTML)
    2. Select the page settings.
    3. Click OK.
    4. Click the exported file to open it.
  3. Click Tap OK

In some charts that contain hierarchical data, such as a chart in a cross tab, you can drill down into a category or value series to view more detailed data, or drill up to view summary data. Interactive Viewer supports drill-up and drill-down capability for the following types of charts:

  • Bar
  • Line
  • Area
  • Pie
  • Scatter
  • Bubble
  • Stock
  • Difference
  • Tube
  • Cone
  • Pyramid

For example, if the category axis of a chart displays location in regions, such as North America, EMEA, APAC, and so on, you can select a region to view detailed data for that region. You can then select each country in the region to view detailed data for that country, and select each city to view details about sales, customers, and so on, in the selected city. Similarly, you can drill up from a city view to get a summarised country view of the data, or a broader region view of the data.

  1. Select and right-click the chart. Select Drill into 'DateTime'.
  2. In the Categories box, select a year from the list and then click tap OK. The chart displays data for the selected year.
  3. To drill further into subcategories of the data, from the chart menu, select Drill into 'Quarter'.
  4. In the Categories box, select the quarter for which you want to view detailed data, then click tap OK. The chart displays data for the quarter you selected.

From the context menu, select Drill up from Categories or Drill into 'DateTime'. The chart in the report displays the data for the selected category.

  1. Select and right-click the chart. Select Drill into 'Year'.
  2. Series appears listing the years for which data is available. Select a year from the list, then click tap OK. The chart displays data for the selected year.
  3. To drill further into subcategories of the data, from the chart menu, select Drill into 'Quarter'.
  4. Series appears listing the quarters for which data can be viewed. Select the quarter for which you want to view detailed data, then click tap OK.

The chart displays data for the quarter you selected.

To drill up to a higher level in the data hierarchy, from the context menu, select Drill up to 'Year.' The chart in the report displays the data for the selected series.

You can select a legend item in a chart, to hide data for that item in the chart. For example, a bar chart shows sales totals by product line, grouped by country. Select each product line in the legend for which you want to hide data. Each selected legend item is displayed in grey, and the corresponding data is hidden in the chart.

If data in a report table or a cross tab is also represented graphically in a chart, in some cases you can switch between the chart view of the data, and the tabular view of the data, using Interactive Viewer.

To switch between a table and chart view of data, select and right-click the report table, then select Switch View. The chart view of the data appears.

Note: A report developer must enable this option when creating a report in Analytics Designer, for it to appear as an available action in Interactive Viewer.

If you are working with a cross tab, select Switch View from the context menu. You can also further analyse the data in a cross tab by choosing the Analyse option from the context menu. The cross tab appears in Interactive Cross tabs.

Similarly, to switch back to the table view, select and right-click the chart, then choose Switch View. The table or cross tab view of the data appears.

If your chart contains a time range selector or a timeline slider bar, you can view specific time intervals in area, bar, column, difference, line, scatter, and stock charts.

When the category is a time field, you can select the time range selector and bottom slider. The time range selector appears below the chart title and enables you to view details in small time intervals, year to date, or one year, in addition to all the values displayed in the chart. The time range slider appears at the bottom of the chart and enables you to select a time period by sliding a bar to the beginning or end of the time period.