Stacked bar charts are one of the most commonly requested visualization types, but for them to run correctly the configuration must be done in a very specific order.
What do you need to do:
- Create a stacked bar chart showing (for example) Projects by Stage, grouped by Business Unit
- Show stacked bar as part of a Dashboard or in Express View
- Stacked bars are tricky because they must draw from a correctly grouped set of fields
Example:
What’s the best way to do it:
- In Dashboard
- Drag new tile onto Dashboard and select type “New Visualization”
- Drag fields into report in the order shown below
- Drag “Project Name” into the Chart Values area (left side)
- Drag “Business Unit” into the Chart Labels area (right side)
- Drag “Stage” into the Chart Labels area (right side)
- In the “Chart Type” menu on the right-side options window, select “Stack Bar”, either vertical or horizontal. The result will show the visualization with Business Unit as the primary label. In most cases, the preference is to show by Stage first.
- In the Data tab of the Visualization options, reverse the order of the Labels, using the drop-downs, so that Stage appears first, then Business Unit, with Project Name as the only Value
- In Express view, this is more straightforward
- Create new Express View Report
- Drag fields into report in the order shown below
- Project Name
- Business Unit
- Stage
- Group the fields in the correct order
- Using the radial option icon, group by Business Unit
- Using the radial option icon, group by Stage
- Finally, select the Visualization icon and then select the Stack Bar option