CHART-it is new in Data Academy 5.5
CHART-it allows you to produce graphs, charts and status indicators directly in Data Academy.
Chart Types
CHART-it produces a variety of chart types:
- Simple Bar
- Pie
- Simple (Single) Trend
- Multi-Trend
- Gas Gauge
- Traffic Light
Defining Charts
A Chart is based on a data table within the Data Academy database - typically this might be a dataset produced by TRANSFORM-it, or the "Fact View" produced by STAR-it. The Chart Details screen contains all the metadata which pertains to your chart. Note that this is a light-weight module, with the focus on simplicity and getting results fast! But don't forget that you can harness the power of TRANSFORM-it to further enhance your charts, by formatting labels, filtering results, etc. etc.
The screen shown is the metadata for a Simple Bar chart, displaying the top 5 items from the dataset DS_Rankings.
The chart is output as shown. Note that the output includes the data values as well as the chart itself.
Filtering and Aggregating Chart Data
A number of properties are available which allow you to filter and aggregate the data returned into your chart.
Value Aggregation
An aggregate function (Sum, Count, etc.) applied to the data value column. (All other columns are then included in a "GROUP BY".)
Select Top / Select Top Percent
Limit the returned data to either the top X rows or top X% rows.
Select Where
A SQL "WHERE" clause applied to the source table.
Order By
A SQL "ORDER BY" clause applied to the source table.
Multi-Trend Charts
This chart type will show multiple trend lines. As input, it expects a TRANSFORM-it Pivot dataset, with the columns defining the series items.
Note that you can explicitly set the minimum and maximum values shown on the scale - if these values are THE SAME then intelligent defaulting is employed.
Gas Gauges
A Gas Gauge indicates the LATEST status of a SINGLE value item.
The Target Values property indicates the parameters pertaining to the red, amber and green sections of the gauge - including the start and end points.
Traffic Lights
A Traffic Light indicates the LATEST status of a SINGLE value item.
Note that the Target Values property expects just two values, indicating the deltas between red-amber and amber-green.
Drill Through
CHART-it's Drill Through functionality allows you to click on a link in one chart, and drill through to a different chart, applying a filter to the second chart.
Imagine the following dataset:
Player Country RunsTotal
Smith England 50
Jones England 80
Brown Australia 60
Johnson Australia 70
We can set up two charts - one showing the "Country" totals, and the second showing a drill-through to the individual players for that country.
We add the sub-chart (the chart we are drilling through to) first.
When we view this chart "stand alone" we will see that all players are shown. This is correct at this stage!
We now add the top-level chart - the chart we will drill-through from. Under the "+" (advanced) settings for "Chart" we have fields for Drill Url and Drill Url Key.
Drill Url
This is the URL of the chart (or other page) we are drilling to. In this case, we are drilling to another chart, so our url is frmChart.aspx. Note that we are passing the "id" parameter in the query string.This "id" is shown on the main CHART-it LITE list screen.
Drill Url Key
This is basically a SQL "WHERE" clause, applied to the chart we are drilling through to, using a ##Field## notation to denote the value of a particular field in the source dataset for the chart we are drilling from. Note that in this case, we have needed to enclose the ##Field## value in single-quotes, because the value is a string!
Viewing The Drill-Through
When viewed, the columns in the "Country Totals" chart will now be clickable, and the results of the child chart filtered acording to the item clicked in the parent!
