Summary
Displays current snapshot or data over time? Current snapshot
Source data: Field (or metric)
Description: Simple single bar chart - qualitative (category) property defining the x axis for Vertical Bar Charts or y axis for Horizontal Bar Charts
Use case example: Count of Companies, split by Owner
Who is this article for?
Planhat Users who are designing Dashboard and Presentation Pages (e.g. CS Ops)
What are Vertical and Horizontal Single Bar Charts?
We bet you're already familiar with the concept of bar charts! 📊 There are actually many different types of bar charts available for you when creating Dashboard or Presentation Pages in Planhat, and in this article we are focusing on the specific types called "Vertical Bar" and "Horizontal Bar" that are part of the "Bar Charts" Widget group.
The "Bar Charts" Widget group consists of simple bar charts that show a snapshot of current data (as opposed to bar charts within the "Trend Charts" group, which show data over time).
Vertical Bar Charts and Horizontal Bar Charts are functionally exactly the same - the bars just run vertically or horizontally, as the names indicate! The screenshot below shows an example of the same data displayed in the two chart types.
As you can see in the example above, Vertical and Horizontal Bar Charts have a numerical (quantitative) axis, and qualitative category values on the other axis. Changing between Vertical and Horizontal Bars flips what is on the x-axis and what is on the y-axis.
You have flexibility in what's represented by the quantitative (numerical) axis - this can be a count of records (e.g. number of Companies), or sum/average/max/min of a property.
Why use Vertical and Horizontal Bar Charts?
Vertical Bars and Horizontal Bars are easy to set up and understand, but can be customized in various ways to best suit each individual use case.
Use cases include (number axis / category axis):
Count of Companies / Phase
Count of Companies / Health Score
Count of Conversations / Type
Average Company Health Score / Owner
Sum of Company ARR / Tier
Sum of Invoice Amount / Status
You can even define your own custom "buckets" if you want to group particular qualitative category values together - e.g. plotting low/medium/high Health Scores (3 bars) rather than a bar for every possible value. More on this in step 3 of the instructions below.
How to set up a Vertical or Horizontal Bar Chart
The main steps are:
Choose a data model (object) - e.g. Company
Define one axis (the numerical axis) by choosing between:
Either counting the number of records - e.g. number of Companies
Or a property (from a choice of metrics and fields) plus an operation (sum, average, max or min) - e.g. sum of ARR
Define the other axis (the bars) by choosing a category property - e.g. Company Phase
Within a Dashboard or Presentation Page, click on "Bar Charts" and then "Vertical Bar" or "Horizontal Bar"
You'll see a form that looks like this:
In the "Setup" tab
Choose an "Object" (i.e. data model), e.g. Company
In "Value", choose between "sum", "average", "count", "max" and "min"
If you select "count", this will count the number of records of your chosen model (e.g. the number of Companies)
For all other operations, once you select the "Value", you also need to select a "Property" (a suitable field or metric) on the model - so, for example, you could do "sum of ARR", or "average of Health Score"
📌 Note: Health Score is called "Hlth" in the dropdown
In "Limit results (max no. of items)", specify the maximum number of bars
"Split by category" is where you define the bars by choosing a suitable property (such as a list field). For example, if you have selected to count the Company model, you could potentially split by Phase, Industry, Region or Health Score ("Hlth")
In "Name", you can optionally enter a title for your Widget, which will display within the Widget
An alternative, particularly relevant for Presentation Pages, is to use a separate simple Text Widget if you would like different formatting options
In "Description", you can optionally add a description for your Widget
This will show in the Widget as a tooltip on an "i" icon
An alternative could be to use a simple Text Widget alongside your Bar Chart
In "Chart Type", you can switch chart types if you like - so, for example, if you started configuring a Vertical Bar Chart and then decide you actually want a Horizontal Bar Chart, you can swap here, and because they are similar chart types, any data you already selected will be compatible
In the "Customization" tab
You'll see checkboxes that you can select or deselect
"Show Legend" displays a legend (which you might want to use instead of ticks and value labels)
"Hide Grid" removes the gridlines from the chart
"Hide 'other'" - this excludes the "other" bar if applicable
"Hide Ticks" removes both the x and y axis labels
"Hide value labels" removes the values (totals) displayed at the top of the bars (for Vertical Bar Charts) or right of the bars (for Horizontal Bar Charts)
"Hide null / undefined" - this excludes the "null / undefined" segment if applicable
Under "Reference Values", you can optionally add one or more reference values, which are lines (horizontal if it's a Vertical Bar Chart, or vertical if it's a Horizontal Bar Chart) that you can use for benchmarking/targets (example shown in the screenshot below)
Click "+ Reference value" to add a new reference value
Give your reference value a name (in "Label"), specify the value itself, choose a line thickness, and select a colour
Repeat these steps if you would like to add an additional reference value
Click the image to view it enlarged
"Custom Segments" is an optional feature that allows you group category values into groups ("buckets"), meaning there are fewer bars
So, for example, if you have selected "Split by category = Hlth", the default will be a bar for each Health Score (0, 1, 2, 3 and so on), but here you could define "buckets" of low/medium/high Health Scores and have bars for those buckets (segments) instead
In order to define custom segments, "Limit results" (in the "Setup" tab) needs to be blank (empty)
To define custom segments:
Click "+ Custom Segments"
Choose a segment "Label", specify which values should be included in that segment via "Include" (using commas to separate the values), and select a "Color"
Repeat the above two steps for as many segments (bars) as you need
Click the image to view it enlarged
Click "Add filters" in the top right of the chart preview if you'd like to add a filter
Here you can select a filter so that the Vertical or Horizontal Bar Chart shows specific data (e.g. only Companies in the Enterprise Tier rather than all Companies)
You can either select from an existing "Company Filter" ...
... or build an "Advanced Filter" from scratch
When you've finished configuring your Bar Chart, click the orange "Add widget" button in the bottom right
If you want to go back and edit your Bar Chart later on, it's easy to do so. While viewing the Page in Edit mode, mouse over the Widget (Chart), and click on the pencil icon to open up the Widget setup form again.
Pro tips
As we have mentioned elsewhere in this article:
You can configure "Custom Segments" (custom bars) if you'd like to group certain category values (bars) in together, with your choice of labels (names) and colors - using this for Health Scores (as shown in the screenshot above) is a typical use case
You can add a "Reference Value", which can be handy for benchmarking/targets - you can see an example in a screenshot earlier in this article
Comparison with other Widgets
Vertical Bar Charts are similar to Top List Bar Charts. Here's the same data displayed in a Top List Bar Chart (shown at the top) and a Vertical Bar Chart (shown at the bottom).
As you can see, the actual charts end up exactly the same, but the Vertical Bar Chart has a little more configuration to set up to achieve that result.
Vertical Bar Charts are a lot more flexible and can be used for a wider variety of use cases, so that's their strength over the Top List Bar Chart - often you'll need a Vertical Bar Chart because you want a display of data that isn't possible in a Top List Bar Chart.
However, for the specific use case of displaying the "top x" records when considering sum totals, Top List Bar Charts are a shortcut to create this specific display of data a little more quickly and easily.