Hello everyone,

Today's blog entry is about using charts. Charts are a nice way to make an otherwise dull report look spiffy; the reports can also be embedded in a screen (Look at the Sales Center Dashboard). Now it's time to dive into creating a chart on a report.

Here's the scenario - you want to print a chart that will display the sum of the customers with the top 5 invoice totals.

Before we get into the details of how to create a chart, here are some definitions:

Argument:  Is the X axis of a chart. In most charts, this axis represents categories, such as months, market segments, or other non-numeric data.  (The customers)

Value: Is the Y axis of a chart. It is usually drawn from bottom to top and usually shows the range of values of variables dependent on one other variable.  (The sum of customer invoices)

Qualitative:  Descriptions or distinctions based on some quality rather than on some quantity. In our case, a "John Smith" customer name would be a qualitative type value.

Steps to create a Bar Chart

1. Create a report based on the Invoice table (click here if you need help with this).
2. Drag a Chart object from the Standard Controls tool box onto the report.
3. The Chart Wizard will pop up, Select Bar.
4. Click Next >>.
5. Here you can select the colour Palette.
6. Click Next >>.
7. By default, 2 series are created.  In our case we only need 1 series, so select Series 2 and click Remove.
8. Change the Series name for Series 1 to something meaningful, in this case I chose "Total Amount".
9. Click Top N options tab.
10. Check Enabled and change the Count to "5". This will display the top 5 values.
11. Uncheck Show Others.
12. Click Point Options tab.
13. Change the Value Format To "Currency".
14. Click Next >>.
15. Select Series Binding tab.
16. For Argument, select "Customer".
17. For Binding mode, select "Summary function".
18. Click (...).
19. From the drop down list, select SUM.
20. From the list tree on the right, select Amount located within Invoice.
21. Click OK.
22. Click on the Auto-created Series tab.
23. For Argument, select "Invoice. Customer".
24. For Binding mode, select "Summary Function".
25. Click (...) for summary function.
26. From the drop down list, select Sum.
27. From the list tree on the right, select Amount located within Invoice.
28. Click OK.
29. Click Finish.

Voila, you have created your first chart and it should look similar to the image below. Be sure to pat yourself on the back.

Before you continue onto the second chart, get up and stretch (if you were like me, the first time I created a chart it was not a simple task, then again I didn't have a wonderful blog entry to refer to .

So this time around, instead of a breakdown by customer and invoice we want a breakdown by invoice item. We want to visually see a breakdown of our line items that are used on invoices and we are going to create a Pie Chart to display this information.

Steps to create a Pie Chart

1. Create a report based on the InvoiceLine table (click here if you need help with this).
2. Drag a Chart object from Standard Controls tool box into the report.
3. The Chart Wizard will pop up, select Pie. 
4. Click Next >>.
5. Here you can select the colour Palette.
6. Click Next >>.
7. By default 2 series are created.  In our case we only need 1 series, so select Series 2 and click Remove.
8. Change the Series name for Series 1 to something meaningful, in this case I chose "Invoice Item".
9. Click Top N options tab.
10. Check Enabled and change the Count to "3". This will display the top 5 values.
11. Uncheck Show Others.
12. Click Point Options tab.
13. Change the Value Format To "Percent".
14. Ensure that Value as percent is checked.
15. Click Next >>.
16. Select Series Binding tab.
17. For Argument, select "Item".
18. For Binding mode, select "Summary function".
19. Click (...).
20. From the drop down list, select SUM.
21. From the list tree on the right, select Amount located within InvoiceLine.
22. Click OK.
23. Click on the Auto-created Series tab.
24. For Argument, select "Item".
25. For Binding mode, select "Summary Function".
26. Click (...) for summary function.
27. From the drop down list, select Sum.
28. From the list tree on the right, select Amount located within InvoiceLine.
29. Click Ok.
30. Click Finish.

Voila, you have created your second chart in Method Report Designer.

I hope these steps will come in handy when creating your next Method report.

Regards,

Michael