Properties depend on your widget type. Charts are an excellent option when you want to present data that needs to be understood quickly. As expected, graphs exist in many different options and possibilities.
The Properties tab in chart widget allows you to view and modify information based on the data set defined at the widget creation.
Besides the options in the properties tab, you can also further customize your widgets by adding Filters to your widgets or by adding calculated values.
You can modify the following information in the Properties tab:
- Chart type
- Values
- Average for categories?
- Category
- Grouping type
- Sort value and sort order
- Maximum category to display
- Group other records
- Add subcategories?
Chart type
This section lets you choose the type of chart you will be using to display information.
Some graphs are more relevant than others based on the situation and the way you want to present information. For example, the spline graph or the lines are useful to represent a progression over time, while the pyramid and pie chart are great for percentages and proportions.
Main graph options are grouped under the following and present different stacking possibilities:
- Areas
- Bars
- Donut
- Line
- Pie
- Pyramid
- Spline
When selecting the type of chart, you should consider the stacked options when you want to compare categories or segments or compare parts of a whole. For the "stacked" function to work properly, flag Add subcategories.
You should consider the percent option when the number is not relevant and your objective is to compare data.
Values
Values in charts are always numbers. They are referring to the data you want to show in your chart in relation to your category selection described below. It may be a number of communications, a number of attendees, an average of occurrences, a sum of investments, etc. Statistically, the definition of the values in Borealis refers to the dependent variable of your chart.
Average for categories
Checking this option will make Borealis calculate automatically the average for the given set of data and add a dashed line in the chart.
Category
Categories act as the independent variable in your chart, in relation to the values data described above. In certain charts (bars, areas, lines, etc.), the category acts as the X axis while in other charts (pies, donuts, etc.) it acts as a color segmentation.
Grouping type
You can make custom groups of data, according to predetermined values. This is similar to filters, as data is filtered according to grouping type. If your category is a date, Borealis offers preconfigured date grouping options (weekly, monthly, etc.).
Sort value and sort order
You can sort the data either per values or categories in ascending or descending order.
Maximum category to display
You can limit data appearing in a chart to a certain number. To do so, specify a numeric value in the field Maximum category to display. Keep in mind that, if you set the maximum to 5, only the first 5 items will be displayed.
You can set a maximum for the categories and the subcategories independently.
You can use this to display a “top 5” or a “top 10” for example. For an accurate usage of the maximum categories to display functionality, it should be used with a relevant order parameter.
Group other records
If you specified a value in the field Maximum category to display, but still want your chart to present the rest of your dataset without focusing the chart on them, you can flag this box.
This will create a category named "Other records" to your chart and will group the records not included by your specified Maximum category to display value.
Add subcategories
This option lets you add a sub-group to the graph. It groups data with the same values at a first level (category), then with different values at a second level (subcategory).
For certain types of charts, subcategories will be represented as different colors, and for others, like the pie chart, the subcategories will offer the possibility to drill down on your graph.