Selecting Accounts, Measures, and Dimensions

After you select a chart type, select the accounts, measures and dimensions to display in each area of your chart.

Depending on your data source or model, you may see either accounts or measures or both.

  • Models that don't have an account dimension use the term Measures for the dimension.

  • Models that do have an account dimension use the term Accounts for the dimension and Measures for the numerical values associated with the account dimension.

(For more information, see Learn About Dimensions and Measures.)

When you first create your chart, you are asked to choose a data source or model. The accounts, measures, and dimensions that you can use are based on the data in that model.

Adding Accounts, Measures, and Dimensions to a Chart

You can add multiple measures and multiple dimensions to your chart. When measures or dimensions are part of a hierarchy, or when a dimension has attributes, you can expand them and select their children, or expand a dimension and select its attributes.

Restriction

When you have an account dimension that has multiple hierarchies, you can use different hierarchies for different charts. However, if you change an account hierarchy in a chart, your data may no longer be displayed.

Charts can use only one Account Hierarchy at a time.

For more information on accounts with multiple hierarchies, see Learn About Hierarchies.

You can also apply filters to your accounts, measures, and dimensions. The chart is updated as you make your choices in the Builder.
Note
When using dimension attributes in your chart, drilling and Display As are not supported. For more information about dimension attributes, see Combine Data with Your Acquired Data.
  1. Select your chart.
  2. In the Designer, open Builder.
  3. Select the accounts, measures, and dimensions.
Tip

Added a date or time dimension to your chart and want to show some comparisons? Follow the guidelines in Adding Time-Based Variances to Charts.

Fine-Tuning the Accounts, Measures, and Dimensions

You can personalize your charts in many ways including adding color or adding values to tooltips for measures that are not in the chart.

Renaming Accounts, Measures, and Dimensions

There are times when you would rather have a customized description for an account, measure, or dimension in your chart rather than using the default value.

  1. Select your chart.
  2. In the Designer, open Builder.
  3. Pick your account, measure, or dimension and then select Start of the navigation path Next navigation step RenameEnd of the navigation path.
  4. Type a new name for the description.

The new description is displayed in your chart.

To change back to the default information, pick the measure or dimension, select and then select (Reset).

Use Color in Charts

To make your chart more visually appealing, add some color.

For some chart types, you can use the same dimension for both Dimensions and Color sections. This can be useful if you want to hide the legend for a chart, but still want to see the information that the legend would provide. For example, you can display total sales (measure) by employee (dimension), and add employee to the color section as well.

Version (or category) dimensions can also be added to the Color section, allowing you to modify colors and patterns. Version dimensions show different versions of data such as Actual or Forecast data.

Restriction

For most chart types, you can only have one of the following object types in the Color section: dimensions, measures, or version dimensions.

  • Dimensions: you can have several dimensions in the Color section (when the chart type allows it), but you can't add version dimensions.

    If there was a measure in the Color section, dragging a dimension to the section will replace the measure with the dimension. When you remove the dimension from the section, the measure is displayed again.

  • Measures: when you have a measure in the Color section, you can have only one parameter. If you already had dimensions in the color section or a different measure, the new measure will replace those objects.

  • Version dimensions:

    • Classic design experience: with the exception of the Stacked Area chart, when you have a version or category dimension in the Color section, you can't add a non-version dimension to the section.

    • Optimized design experience: with the exception of the Stacked Area chart and the Stacked Bar/Column chart, when you have a version or category dimension in the Color section, you can't add a non-version dimension to the section.

      When you do have both a version and a non-version dimension, the version dimension is used to change the patterns and the non-version dimension is used to change the colors.

You can apply the same dimension to both dimension and color sections in the following chart types:
  • Bar/Column
  • Box Plot
  • Bubble, Scatterplot, and Cluster Bubble
  • Marimekko

When you switch to a chart type that does not support using the same dimension twice, one of the dimension options will be dropped.

Tip

You can either use the Add Dimension/Measure option to add a dimension to the color section, or you can move (drag) dimensions between the Dimensions and Color sections.

Color Options for Versions and Accounts/Measures in Charts (Optimized Story Experience)

When you add the version dimension to the color section, the versions inherit the color choices that are made for the accounts ( or measures). You can modify the patterns for the versions, but you can override those pattern choices when you change the patterns for the accounts.

If you want to have the version dimension control both the pattern and color options, then clear the following checkbox: Color by accounts (Color by measures).

Use Trellis Charts for Comparison

A trellis chart is a set of small charts shown in a grid for comparison. Each small chart represents one item in a section. For example, if you create a bar chart that compares revenue by region, and then add the <Country> dimension to the trellis, multiple small charts appear. Each small chart displays the revenue by region for one country.

  1. Select your chart and then do one of the following:

    • From the action menu () select Start of the navigation pathAdd Next navigation step TrellisEnd of the navigation path.

    • In the Designer, open Builder.

      Find Chart Structure and select Start of the navigation path(Add Chart Components) Next navigation step Add TrellisEnd of the navigation path.

  2. Under Trellis, select Add Dimension and choose your dimension.

Include Extra Accounts, Measures, and Dimensions in Tooltips

You can add information to the tooltip for accounts, measures, and dimensions that are not in your chart.

You may want to limit the number of accounts, measures, and dimensions used to create your chart, but still be able to see the details of a datapoint from all of them. Select additional accounts, measures, and dimensions from the appropriate section:
  • Tooltip Accounts
  • Tooltip Measures
  • Tooltip Dimensions
Remember

You will see either a Tooltip Accounts or a Tooltip Measures option, but not both.

  1. Select your chart and then do one of the following:

    • From the action menu () select Start of the navigation pathAdd Next navigation step TooltipEnd of the navigation path, and then select either Account, Measure, or Dimension.

    • In the Designer, open Builder.

      Find Chart Structure and select Start of the navigation path(Add Chart Components) Next navigation step Add TooltipEnd of the navigation path, and then select either Account, Measure, or Dimension.

  2. Under Tooltip Accounts, select Add Account and choose your accounts.
  3. Under Tooltip Measures, select Add Measure and choose your measures.
  4. Under Tooltip Dimensions, select Add Dimension and choose your dimensions.

When you move the cursor over a datapoint, the tooltip will show information for all the selected measures and dimensions.

Related Information