Bar charts

Bar charts are one of the chart types available for viewing data. This type of chart displays horizontally spaced bars scaled to represent a value.

The x-axis selects the values that will be displayed along the bottom of the page. Identical values are grouped together

Bar charts must have a numeric y-axis value. This value can come from any numeric attribute, or the count on any kind of attribute, be it numeric, text, or date. The count means that the height of the bar is based on the total number of matching records.

You can also choose to group x-axis values to simplify the number of values displayed. That is, records will be clumped together based on the degree of granularity chosen by the user. Bigger groups will display less points than smaller ones.

Before value grouping

After value grouping

If you choose to group, you have additional options for displaying your values when you have a numerical display attribute. In that case, you must select between showing the minimum record value, maximum record value, sum of record values, average value, or simply a count of the matching records.

For non-numeric attributes, there is only an option to see a count.

Furthermore, you can filter by a selected factor. You can do this by selecting "where" instead of "of all records" from the menu next to the grouping selection. This will limit the data displayed to the criteria you add.

Users can filter by any kind of attribute. For example, for text, you can filter by exact matches or by records containing a string. Numbers can be filtered by records above, below, matching, or between a user specified amount.

You can also filter by date and filter by records before, after, matching, or between a certain date. The widget to do this is a calendar and can be moved forward or backward in time by the day, month, or year.

You can choose to show multiple series of data at once on the y-axis. Each will have its own coloration to distinguish it. Simply click the "+" button to add additional data, or the '-' button to remove a series.

Series of data can be different attributes, or the same attribute with different filtering, grouping, or calculation method (i.e. sum, count, min, max or average).

When different series are made up of different attributes, they will be displayed with their own y-axis.

This can end up looking cluttered if you are looking at a lot of series together.

There are two ways to simplify this. The first is to move a series to the right of the chart. You can do this by clicking on the swatch for a series and then selecting the "side of chart" as right.

Additionally, you can merge your axis into one and scale all values accordingly. You can do this by clicking the checkbox labeled "Merge Y Axes" just above your x-axis series list.

You can also change the color and opacity of your bars by clicking on the swatch and making your desired changes.

Keep in mind that the number of bars in a chart will affect the performance. You will get a warning at 250 bars and the system will not draw a chart with more than 1000.

Like all other charts, bar charts can be saved as a snapshot and viewed again later, or used to make new chart visualizations. Just click "save snapshot" at the top of the page.