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Line Chart

Configure Line Chart

Data Configuration

Visual Configuration

User-Defined Colors

Configuration Options in Full-Screen Mode
 

Line chart is used to visualize data points or values, connected by a continuous line. It is useful to see trends in your data over time or to forecast values.

Line chart represents a series of data points, called Measure, on Y-Axis and another set of values, called Dimension, on X-Axis. You can also create additional lines that represent comparison trends. 

Below, you can see issues for a project in Jira. You can notice when the issue creation/resolution was the highest and when it took a dip.

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To create a Line chart:

  • Right-click on the ‘Created’ column > Select View> Change> Line.

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Refer here to learn more about creating a visualization.

The following figure shows the resulting Line chart.

3.png

Configure Line Chart

  • Select your Line chart and open the Visualizations Panel.

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Following configuration options are available for the Line chart:

mceclip0.png

  1. Data Configuration mceclip1.png: It lets you choose columns for the following settings:
    1. X-Axis
    2. Y-Axis
    3. Color By
    4. Sorting
  2. Visual Configuration mceclip2.png: It lets you configure the visual appearances and interactions of the Line chart.
    1. Label Style
    2. X-Axis
    3. Y-Axis
    4. Zoom
    5. Legend
    6. Container Settings
    7. Visual Interactions
  3. Visualization Level Filters mceclip3.png: They let you filter the data in the visualization without impacting the other visualizations. 

Refer here to learn more about Visualization Level Filters.

  1. User-Defined Colors mceclip4.png: They let you add meaning to a data point by associating a specific color to it. User-defined colors also help you to differentiate a data point from the rest.
    1. Colors for Individual Data Item

Data Configuration

Click on the mceclip5.png icon for data configuration options. 

X-Axis

Specify the column which contains date and time values. You can aggregate Date, DateTime and Time type column by Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Day, Hour, and Minutes. 

To change the X-Axis column:

  1. Click onmceclip6.png to remove the existing column.
  2. From the Data Panel, drag the desired column and drop it onto the Visualizations Panel’s “X-Axis” section.
    Note.pngNote: You can also type the column name in the Data Panel to quickly find it.
  3. Select the grouping option for the date and time data. 

6.png

Y-Axis

Here, you can specify the column whose aggregated values should be shown.

To change the Y-Axis column:

  1. Follow the same steps shown for the “X-axis”, then
  2. Click on the  mceclip7.png  icon and select the aggregate function.
    • Aggregate functions for textual data: Count, Unique Count
    • Aggregate functions for numerical data: Count, Unique Count, Sum, Min, Max, Avg
  3. You can add multiple columns to the Y-Axis to create a multi-line chart.
  4. You need to separately select aggregate functions for each of the columns added to Y-Axis, as explained above.

In this example, the Line chart with “Key’ and “Resolved’ columns on Y-Axis enables you to compare the number of issues allocated vs resolved issues.

The following image shows the ‘Multi-Line’ view for both the columns in different colors. 

7.png

Color By

It is also possible to color or split each line into another categorical column into the data using the ‘Color By’ option.

For example, if you choose Issue ‘Type’ for ‘Color by’ setting, then a separate line with different colors will be created for each of the issue types such as ‘Epic’, ‘Story’, ‘Bugs’ etc. 

To set the ‘Color By’ column:

  • Drag and drop the column from the Data Panel onto the Visualizations Panel’s ‘Color By’ section. 
Note.pngNote: ‘Color By’ option cannot be applied with multiple columns on Y-Axis. Remove the multiple columns from Y-Axis to apply the ‘Color By’ and vice-versa. 

8.png

Sorting

You can sort the Line chart on X-Axis or Y-Axis. 

Note.pngNote: By default, the Line chart is sorted on X-Axis.

To change the sorting:

  1. Click on mceclip8.pngicon and select the column from the drop-down.
  2. Click on mceclip9.png or mceclip10.png icon to change the sort order (ascending or descending).

Add Sorting Levels 

  1. In the ‘Sorting’ section, click on 'Add level'. A sorting level will be created.
  2. Select the column to apply sorting on from the drop-down. 
    Note.pngNote: You can only sort on the columns present in the Pivot chart.
  3. Click on the ascendingmceclip11.png, descending mceclip12.png icon to toggle sorting order. 
  4. Repeat these steps to perform multi-column sorting. 

Reorder Sorting Levels 

The order of columns in the Sorting section defines the order of sorting in the Pivot chart.

  • Drag and drop columns in the sorting section to change the sort order. 

Remove Sorting Levels

  • Click on mceclip13.png icon to remove the sorting level. 

To learn more about sorting, refer to the following GIF. 

Note.pngNote: Steps for sorting are same for Grid and Line chart. 

3_Sorting-min.gif

Visual Configuration

  • Click on the mceclip14.png icon for visual configuration settings. 

Labels

You can show or hide the data labels by this toggle switch.  

  1. Provide the size of data labels.
  2. Click on the mceclip0.pngicon and select a font color. To restore the default color setting, click ‘Reset to Default’.

10.png

X-Axis

  • Type in the title for the X-Axis.

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Y-Axis

  1. Choose the number of decimal places you want to display values with.
  2. Select the Axis type.
  3. Type in the Axis title. 

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Axis Types

There are two ways to plot values - linear and logarithmic. 

On a linear scale, a change between two values is perceived on the basis of the difference between the values, whereas, on a logarithmic scale, this change is perceived on the basis of the ratio of the two values. 

The main reason to use logarithmic scales in charts and graphs is to respond to skewness towards large values; i.e., cases in which one or a few points are much larger than the bulk of the data. 

When plotting disparate data on a linear scale, the smaller values get lesser prominence while the larger ones occupy the entire scale. In such cases, using a logarithmic Axis type is recommended. 

The following figure shows the Line chart on a logarithmic scale. 

13.png

Zoom Option

This option enables you to clearly understand specific data in your Line chart by zooming it.

  1. Keep the Zoom Option ‘On’ by selecting the toggle switch.
  2. For the Zoom Panel, select the ‘Show’ option from the drop-down to select the part of your chart by dragging its edges in either direction.
  3. Select the ‘Hide’ option from the drop-down to hide the Zoom Panel.
  4. Right-click + drag to pane the chart (move up, down, left and right) within the container to focus on a particular portion of the chart. 

14.png

Note.pngNote: When the Zoom option is enabled, you can also use the mouse wheel to zoom your chart. 

Line Style

To turn lines selection on or off:

  1. Select the toggle switch.
  2. Choose between Linear and Smooth line style.

The following example shows the visualization with no lines:

15.png

With linear lines, your chart will look like this- 

16.png

If you choose to have smooth lines, then your chart will look like this-

17.png

Markers

In your Line view, each point (shown as a circle) on the line is a data marker representing a single data value in your data set. You can enable or disable markers on the view by selecting the On (or Off) slider. Here is a Line chart without markers. 

18.png

Legend

Legend helps you identify and correlate data on your chart. They provide an overview of the different data points involved in the chart along with the colors associated with each of them. Legend consists of Heading and Items. 

  1. To turn legends on or off, select the toggle switch next to Legend. 
  2. Select legend position (Left, Right).
  3. Enter text for the legend heading.

19.png

Note.pngNote: Click on legend items and related data will be highlighted in the visualization. 

Container Settings

  1. To show or hide the header and border, click the toggle switch. 
  2. Turn on the toggle switch to show the border for the container. Change the border color, style and width as shown below:

20.png

The following figure displays the effect of various container settings for your Line chart.

21.png

Visual Interactions

  • Select the target behavior and coordinated visualization scope from the below settings.

22.jpg

To learn more, refer to section- ‘Configure Coordinated Visualization’. 

User-Defined Colors

  • Click on the mceclip15.png icon for color settings. 

Colors for Individual Data Item

It lets you add meaning to a data item by associating a specific color to it and differentiate some data items from the rest.

For example, the red and green color may be used to represent “Off Track” and “On Track” issues, respectively. Whereas, orange color may be used for the “Bugs” type of issues to draw attention.

To change the colors:

  1. Click on the mceclip16.png icon next to the data item for which you want to change the color.
  2. Select the color from the available color grid or click ‘More Colors’.
  3. To restore default settings, click on ‘Reset to Default’.

23.png

If you have selected the  ‘Color By’ option in Data Configuration, you can customize the colors for different sub-categories for the selected column. Here in this example, different sub-categories for issue type are Epic, Story, Bug, etc represented by different lines. 

24.png

Configuration Options in Full-Screen Mode

Visualizations can be seen in full-screen mode by clicking on mceclip17.png icon.

Note.pngNote: Visualizations Panel is not accessible in full-screen mode.
  1. Click on the mceclip18.png icon at the top-right corner of the container.
  2. Select ‘Configure View’ from the overflow menu.
    25.png
  3. A pop-up form with all the relevant configuration options will appear on the screen.
  4. Configure your visualization and click on ‘APPLY’.
    26.png

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