Adding Target Lines to Bar Charts

In order to characterize Accolade data more completely, it can be helpful to include a threshold line or target value indicators to your chart. Bar charts include an option to display and hide target data for a project or portfolio. Users can add target lines to grouped, stacked, and vertical bar charts to visually represent a benchmark line and add context for the viewer. Adding interpretation to the data visualization helps the viewer understand the information being presented in the chart.

To add target lines to a bar, grouped bar, or stacked bar chart:

1. From the Project > Charts & Reports page, click the name of the chart and click to edit the chart details.
2. In the Target Line Report Source field, select the online report to be referenced.

The Target Line Report Source does not have to be the same report as used for the chart's Report Source. If the Report Source and the Target Line Report Source are different reports, the values in the Target Line Report Key column should match the values in the Grouping column.

3. In the Target Line Report Key and Target Line Report Value fields, select the report columns from the selected source above that will be referenced to create target lines.

The Target Line Report Value controls what values the targets lines display in the chart.

• If the Target Line Report Source column selected contains rows with unique values, the Target Line Report Value will display the relative metric value as the target line.
• If the Target Line Report Source column selected contains rows with duplicate values, the target line will display as the aggregated totals of the Target Line Report Value metric values from each row of data.
• When Cycle Segments is set to Horizontal Axis, the target lines will only be applied to the original value, as defined for the horizontal axis.

Examples 1 & 2 discuss how to create a chart with target lines using one or multiple chart sources, and the Target Line Report Source column contains unique values per project. Example 3 discusses how to create a chart with target lines using aggregated metric totals.

Example 1 - Bar Charts Using One Report Source

For example, a user has several different projects that are all reporting yearly sales numbers, and wants to review how each project performed against their individual sales target. For the report, the user has created a Project Sales Report that includes the Project Name, and selected the Total Sales and Sales Forecast metrics to be included in the report.

Using the Project Sales Report as the source for both the chart and the target lines, make the following selections for a bar chart:

• For the chart setup, select Project Name as the Grouping value and Total Sales as the Bar value, to create bars that represent the total sales for each project.
• For the targets setup, select Project Name as the Target Line Report Key value and Sales Forecast as the Target Line Report Value, to create target lines that represent the sales targets for each project.

Example 2 - Bar Charts Using Different Report Sources

Using the same scenario from Example 1, the user is again reviewing how each project performed against their individual sales target. In this example, the user will still create a report to gather the yearly sales numbers from the projects, however the sales targets are defined in a reference table stored in Accolade, so they will need to create a second report to use this table information to create target lines.

For the chart report, the user has created a Project Sales Report that includes the Project Name, and selected the Total Sales metric to be included in the report. For the target line report, the user has created a Sales Reference Table report that uses the reference table data for its information source.

Using the Project Sales Report as the source for the chart, and the Sales Reference Table as the source for the target lines, make the following selections for a bar chart:

• For the chart setup, select Project Sales Report as the Report Source, Project Name as the Grouping value and Total Sales as the Bar value, to create bars that represent the total sales for each project.
• For the targets setup, select Sales Reference Table as the Target Line Report Source, Project as the Target Line Report Key value and Sales Goal as the Target Line Report Value, to create target lines that represent the sales targets for each project.

 

As with the single source grouped bar and stacked bar examples, the user can include additional metrics in their chart and reports in order to visually represent the comparisons.

Example 3 - Bar Charts Using Aggregated Metric Totals

In this scenario, the user has several regions that are being reviewed against their regional yearly sales targets. There are multiple projects within each region, so the user needs to aggregate both the sales numbers and the total sales forecast for each region. For the report, the user has created a Regional Sales Report that includes data for all of the projects in the region, and selected the Sales Region, Total Sales, and Projected Sales metrics to be included in the report.

Using the Regional Sales Report as the source for both the chart and the target lines, make the following selections for a bar chart:

• For the chart setup, select Regional Sales Report as the Report Source, Sales Region as the Grouping value and Total Sales as the Bar value, to create bars that represent the total sales numbers for each region. Since there are multiple projects in each region, the bar will display the aggregated Total Sales value.
• For the targets setup, select Regional Sales Report as the Target Line Report Source, Sales Region as the Target Line Report Key value and Projected Sales as the Target Line Report Value, to create target lines that represent the total sales targets for each region, Again since there are multiple projects in each region, the target line will display the aggregated Projected Sales value.

As with the previous examples, the user can include additional metrics in their chart and reports in order to visually represent the comparisons.

 

Important! When adding targets to bar charts, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Select appropriate data types and values to render a meaningful chart and targets. The system will not prevent you from selecting different data types and will plot selected data as best as possible without error.
• Target lines can be turned on and off by clicking on the Targets legend within the chart.
• Target lines are only valid for use in bar charts that are displayed vertically.
• In stacked bar charts, target lines will not display if Stacked to 100% is selected.

Notes:    To delete a saved chart, display the chart from the Charts & Reports page, click to display the chart settings, and click Delete at the bottom of the page. Only the chart owner, users assigned as owners with All Reporting Rights, and Process Designers with All Reporting Rights can delete the chart. If the Replace Empty Value system parameter is set to 0, charts may render inconsistently due to empty or missing data returned by the report. Reporting Rights are not required to view the chart in a page layout; however a user must be an owner or have at least one matching user role for the chart to display in the layout.