Comparisons

This example shows how you can use Merged charts to compare things side by side, we’ve chosen to use two time periods but you can of course adapt these instructions to include more time periods or as an alternative you could use it to compare two, or more, regions, stores, departments etc.

Step 1: Create Your Individual Charts

We’ve created one chart that contains the data we want to work with, Current Month and we’ve duplicated this chart, renaming it to Previous Month.

These charts are referred to as child charts and at the moment they’re identical.

Open

To make the charts easier to read in the Merged chart we’re going to change the colour of the bars in one of the charts.

Step 2: Applying a Default Colour

Edit one of the charts and on the Colours tab choose the default colour that you want to use. We’ve chosen a different colour from the current theme colours by clicking on it. Now we need to copy and paste the hex code from the box beneath the colour palette to the Default Colour colour field.

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After saving the changes our two charts now look different on the Dashboard.

Step 3: Category Object Filters

Next, let’s set up some Category Object filters that will allow us to quickly change the month on view. Firstly, we need to create a Category filter for the Month Name and then a second filter for the Month Number.

Step 4: Applying the Category Object Filter

To ensure we’re looking at different figures for the current and previous month, we need to apply the Category Object filter to the current month but ignore it on the previous month.

The ‘Filter’ tab for the chart that displays your current month’s data should look like this (we have already selected a month from the Category Objects filter).

The ‘Filter’ tab for the chart that displays your previous month’s data should look like this, you will need to click ‘Manually apply category filters’.

We now need to add a filter to this chart that will deduct 1 from the current Month Number and this is entered as shown below.

Step 5: Creating the Merged Chart

Click the ‘Create new chart’ icon on a cell on your Dashboard and on the Chart tab select ‘Merged Chart’. On the ‘Data’ tab, click the ‘Add’ icon and add both charts that you created in the previous step. You should now see the two child charts at the top of the screen and the Merged chart in the bottom half.

Give your chart a name and click the save icon and you’ll now see it on the dashboard. Each time you choose a new month from the Category Object filter, the Merged chart will update to show the new comparison.