Hello,
I am trying to create a dashboard that retrieves data from a database and displays it properly.
Now, retrieving data into a grid application has turned out to be fairly straightforward, so long as I implemented views on the SQL-Server and utilized those. So now I got great lists of table content and can use something actually smart to sort the data for me (SQL is at least a lot more understandable for me than SC). What I’m still a bit troubled with is turning the whole data into nice, easily understandable charts. The summary function is completely unusable, as I want to display the actual values, not how many of them I have. I access a data warehouse, so all calculation is done outside of SC (users - as in: management - don’t like Dashboards that take minutes to load and may well fail).
Creating charts
So lets assume I have a table with three columns. A, B and dummy. The dummy column only holds 0s and is created in the view, so I can cheat the useless grouping function, which for some incomprehensible reason is a requirement for charts to function at all. Now I want to use the values in the A-Column to be displayed on the X-Bar with the B-Values displayed as a bar-diagramm. By activating charts on the B-Column, that got into a somehow working state. “Somehow” as in “works, but not well”.
Auto-Load chart
The only chart I appear to be able to use for auto-load appears to be the perfectly unusable summarize function. Great.
Is there any way I can load the chart function associated to a specific field?
Maybe a macro in a specific event? If yes, I have not found the macro in question.
Display options
The labels (both those naming the bars and those representing the value of bars) will not display horizontally while displaying the bars vertically, making them harder to read than necessary.
The value labels on the bars (B-Column values) are of the type double. However, SC will either insist on padding them with 0s or on rounding them. A (working) option to trim excess 0s where not needed and disabling rounding would be helpful.
Charts are one of the most useful methods of displaying data, is it really too much to ask to implement a useful function for displaying it?
Would they not be worth to receive their own application?
Cheers,
Fred