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Formatting Charts

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to Format a chart.

Charts in Reports

Selecting the right charts is a crucial step of the reporting process, as they are the canvas of a future analysis.

Your report is the gateway to insights and actionable information. Using the right charts means that your audience interprets data the right way and gets the right insights without any confusion. We broke them down into groups so you can identify the one that is most relevant depending on what you are trying to demonstrate.

Formulas in Chart Elements

You can use the formula editor to define and edit formulas in chart elements.

You can add formulas in:

Chart title
Legend title
Axis titles
Maximum and minimum values for axis scaling

Once you've selected a chart element, click the pen icon in the formula editor to add a formula.

Formatting a Bar Chart

Tab	Section
Display Settings	Display Legend Category Axis Value Axis 1 Hide Chart Dimensions and Measures Errors and Warnings
Appearance Settings	Background Border
Style Settings	Measure Style Palettes Markers Symbol Border Symbol Palette Bar 3D Light and Shadow Effects
Layout Settings	Size Relative Position Layout Vertical Horizontal

Pie Chart Formats

Tab	Section
Display Settings	Display Legend Hide Chart Dimensions and Measures Errors and Warnings
Appearance Settings	Background Border
Style Settings	Palettes Pie 3D Light and Shadow Effects
Layout Settings	Size Relative Position Layout Vertical Horizontal

Warning Icons in Charts

Warning icons in charts can let you know when there are chart and data object errors.

You can enable or disable warning icons in the Format panel in the Display Settings tab, under the Errors and Warnings section, using the Show alert when incompatible data present option.

Warning icons can signal general warnings; icons are displayed on the top left corner of the chart.

Warning icons	Description
Red X in a white background	Impossible to generate the chart. This could be due to a cache problem - try clearing temporary objects from the cache.
White X in a red circle	Can't find the image, ask your BI administrator to check the load balancing settings and enable service monitoring.
Yellow warning	For example, the dataset is too large (technical limit of the server), need to refresh the dataset, other cube errors.
Blue alert	Limit for optimal rendering.

In an incompatible chart data warning, a small yellow warning icon is displayed on the data point.

This happens if Show alert when incompatible data present is activated in the chart format options, and the dataset is inconsistent with the chart parameters. For example, a warning can appear in a pie chart with negative values, negative values for a logarithmic scale, or inconsistent hierarchical values for a tree map.

Format Charts

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