Watch the below video to get an overview on creating Charts.

You can change the chart type any time without having to recreate it. You can also apply the appropriate aggregate functions on the columns to calculate and summarize data the way you want it.

Creating a chart

1. You can invoke the Chart Designer in one of the following three ways:
   
1. From the Side navigation panel
   
1. Access the workspace and click Create in the top left corner and choose Chart View from the drop-down menu.
2. Click Reports from the side navigation panel and click Create new reports and choose Chart View from the list.
   
   
3. Choose the base table above which the reports should be created.
2. From the Table Interface
1. Open the table over which the report should be created.
2. Click the more icon and choose New Chart view from the list.
   
   
2. On the left is the Column List pane, and on the right is the Chart Designer area.On the left is the Column List pane, and on the right is the Chart Designer area.
   
3. Drag-and- drop the required columns into the respective shelves.
   
1. X-Axis: Column dropped in this shelf appears horizontally across the X-axis.
   
2. Y-Axis: Column dropped in this shelf appears vertically across the Y-axis. You can drop multiple columns in this shelf to create charts with multiple Y-axes.
   
3. Color: When a column is dropped in this shelf, the chart will be further categorized showing each data point in different colors (different data series) in the chart.
   
4. Text: Includes the corresponding value of the dropped column as a data label in the chart, according to the function applied on the column.
   
5. Include columns for Tooltip: Includes the corresponding value of the dropped columns in the chart tool-tip, according to the function applied on the column. 
   

Zia Suggestions

Choosing a suitable chart type is challenging. With Zia's suggestion, you can find the right visualizations that are best suited for the data.

These suggestions will be available once the columns are dropped on the designer shelf. Click Zia Suggestion in the top left corner above the chart designer.

Zia Suggestions will list all the chart types that are suitable. You can preview the charts and choose the most preferred one. The preview page will also list the steps to create the chosen chart type. Click Apply to use the chart for analysis.

Applying Functions on Columns

Zoho Analytics allows you to apply aggregate/categorical functions like Sum, Count, Average, Min, Max, etc., on the data columns to a group and summarize data in charts. When you apply a function on a column, a single value will be returned which is derived based on the values in the column. The default function for a Numeric (including Currency) data type is Sum and for a Date data type is Year. If the data type of the column is a string (Categorical/Dimension column) and not numeric, then the default function applied is Actual Values.

To change the default function applied, after dropping the column, select the required function (aggregate/categorical) from the drop-down list present in the column. The drop-down list displays all the applicable functions based on the data type of the column, as shown in the screenshots below.

String Data Type

Numeric Data Type

Date Data Type

For instance, if you want to plot Average Sales for each Month across each Region, select Averagefunction from the drop-down list for Sales(Y Axis) column, Month & Yearfunction for Date(X Axis) column and select Actual Values function for Region (Color column) and then click on the button 'Click here to Generate Graph'.

The following tables list all the functions along with the description of their functionality.

Numeric and Currency Data Types:

Date Data Type - Actual Value Functions:

Date Data Type - Seasonal Value Functions:

Date Data Type - Aggregate Function:

String(Categorical/Dimension) Data Type:

Advanced Summarizing Options

When creating a chart, Zoho Analytics provides advanced summary functions, apart from the basic functions such as Sum, Max, Min or Average. This allows you to summarize data values in that column based on the values in other columns. Using this you will be able to do some powerful calculations on a chart like running total of sales over years or calculate the difference in sales from the previous year etc.,

Following are the advanced summarizing options: 

The following screenshot illustrates a sample chart with different advanced summary functions applied.

Choosing Chart Type

After creating a chart, you can easily change it to another chart type by simply clicking on a button with out changing the plotted data. For example, you have created a Bar chart, but then decide that you want the data to be displayed as a Pie chart. You can do this by changing the chart type using the toolbar or you can use Other Charts button on the toolbar.

The toolbar provides you with the options to choose between Pie, Bar, Stacked Bar, Line, Scatter and Table chart types at the top level. If you do not find the chart type that you are looking for, then click on Other Charts button in the toolbar and select the chart type that you want to apply from the Chart Options dialog box that appears. You can view a brief description of each chart type the bottom of the dialog box by clicking on the specific chart type. Notice that chart types that are not applicable/unsupported for the combination of columns that you are using to create the chart will appear disabled.
After selecting the required chart type in the dialog box, click OK.

The below table describes the various Chart types supported by Zoho Analytics. For a detail understanding of the chart types and the combination of columns used to create them, refer to this help documentation.