Charts

After you select a layout, you must add charts to it. You can select a chart type from the available chart categories. Charts define the way that you want the data to be displayed on the widgets or dashboards. For the data to be displayed properly on the chart, you must set data definition and set chart properties. You cannot modify or delete charts nor can you create any custom charts.

Dashboard Designer Tool displays multiple charts types under each of the following chart categories:

Comparison
Composition
Distribution
Flow or process
Hierarchy
Location
Relationship
Summary
Trend

An icon that represents the chart type is displayed next to each chart type. You can select a chart type based on your data representation. After you drag a chart to a widget, you need to set data definitions and chart properties to complete the widget. For more information about creating a custom widget, see Creating custom widgets.

Choosing chart types

You can choose a chart type based on what you want the chart to illustrate.

Choose a chart type based on whether you want to illustrate the following factors:

Correlation or connections between variables of a single group or connection between two or more groups over a time period.
Comparison between two or more variables in a single group or across multiple groups over a time period.
Composition of a single group.
Relation and distribution of variables in single or multiple groups.
Performance indicators.

The following table provides some suggestions on the types of charts that can be used:

Table 1. Choosing chart types
Purpose	Chart type
To view contributions of parts to a whole.	Bar chart Pie chart Stacked chart
To view trends in time or contrast values across different categories.	Line chart Area chart Bar chart Baseline chart Column chart Range Column chart Calendar Heat Map Box and Whisker
To compare groups of related information against actual values.	Bar chart Radar
To view values in descending or ascending order.	Bar chart Column chart
To view key performance indicators.	Gauge chart Bullet chart
To view variations among related groups for critical values.	Heatmap chart
To view the specific values in chart by different bubble sizes.	Bubble chart
To view the results of mathematical calculations or experiments.	Scatter chart Venn chart Grid
To represent speedometers, watches, volume or engine tuners, and so on.	Complex Gauge chart
To represent energy or material transfers between processes.	Sankey chart
To view hierarchical data.	Sunburst chart Tree chart Treemap chart
To view textual data.	Tag Cloud chart
To view various types of data-related genomes.	Circos chart
To view geographical data.	Map chart
To view analytical data.	Quadrant Motion chart
To view single metric data.	Badge chart
To view logical or physical mapping of data.	Topology chart