Interactive Summary and Bar Chart :: SAS(R) BI Dashboard 4.31: User's Guide, Second Edition

Definition

An interactive summary and bar chart is a graph that consists of a grid and some vertical or horizontal columns (bars) with a slider that can be moved across the bars.

An interactive display enables dashboard users to interactively traverse large amounts of detail data by sliding along a summary chart. Detail data can be easily compared using the following two methods:

When the display is defined, the dashboard designer selects a column by which to group data.
While viewing the display, the business user can select different detail slices to compare.

Note: This indicator can show actual and forecasted data over time. Additionally, it can show the confidence intervals for the future forecasted values. These values are provided by indicator data that is generated using SAS Time Series Forecasting.

Example of an Interactive Summary and Bar Chart Indicator

example interactive summary and bar chart indicator

For a sample of the indicator data that was used to create this indicator, see “Sample Data Structure” for this indicator.

Usage Information

Note: SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 and later provides this indicator for support of environments that have been migrated from SAS BI Dashboard 4.2. It is not recommended that users of SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 or later use this indicator. Instead, use the chart with slider prompt indicator and either bar chart indicators, and define an interaction between the two indicators to achieve the same functionality, but with superior control by way of the display settings.

For more information, see Adding Interactions between Indicators.
See Bar Chart with Bullet.
See Bar Chart with Reference Lines.
See Chart with Slider Prompt.

Data best suited for	An interactive summary and bar chart is most commonly used when data greatly varies across time and multiple categories can be defined (to represent the different bars). This chart can also be used with ranges by representing the length of each bar as the progress made toward a certain range value. Because the interactive summary and bar chart has many components, be sure to identify what role each value or data point plays in the chart and think about how to display the value or data point.
Not suited for	The indicator data must be suitable for a bar chart. Indicator data that returns a single row and that is suitable for a KPI indicator is not suitable for this indicator.
Target audience	This indicator type is appropriate for all user audiences. Most people find this indicator type familiar and easy to interpret. The ability to choose the time period that is displayed by the chart provides value and relevance to the user.
Data aggregation support	This indicator type averages the applicable indicator data. Note: The detail bar chart always averages the data. However, you can select the aggregation method to use when summarizing data for the summary chart in the indicator. The default selection is Sum.
Range support	A range is required.
Alert support	Alerts are supported. For information, see Customizing Alerts.
Link support	This indicator type can be used to define a link only. For more information about defining an indicator with a hyperlink, see Adding Links to Indicators or Other Content.
Interaction support	Data filter support: This indicator does not support data filtering. Interactive highlighting support: This indicator does not support interactive highlighting. For more information, see Adding Interactions between Indicators.
Filter multiple items support	Filtering multiple items is not supported.

General Settings

The General Settings section provides controls that support the following tasks:

Note: When setting the height and width of this indicator type, remember that it has minimum legible dimensions of 380 x 450 pixels.

Display Settings

The following display settings are used in the preceding figure. For more information, see “Sample Data Structure” for this indicator.

Display Setting	Selection Used for Figure
X-axis value	Product_Line
Bar value	ACTUAL
Forecasted value	FORECAST
Lower confidence	Lower Limit
Upper confidence	Upper Limit
Summarization graph type	Line is selected.
Summarization function	Sum is selected.
Default data color	Blue is selected.
Show legend	This setting is selected.
Summarize by	Delivery Date
Column group by	Customer_Group
Detail axis format	$123,456 is selected.
Summary axis format	$123,456 is selected.

You can customize the following display settings for this indicator:

(Required) From the X-axis value list, select the column in your data that you want to use for the X-axis value in the indicator. When you view your indicator data, the columns in the data set are described by the values in the Column Name column. The selections available in the X-axis value list are all of the values in the Column Name column.
(Required) From the Bar value list, select the value that you want to use for the bars that are drawn in the indicator.
(Required) From the Forecasted value list, select the value to use for the forecasted value in a forecast chart.
From the Lower confidence list, select the value to use for the lower confidence boundary in an interactive display.
From the Upper confidence list, select the value to use for the upper confidence boundary in an interactive indicator.
From the Alternate value to summarize list, select the value to use for the summarization. The summarized value is used to draw the summary line or bar chart at the bottom of the interactive charts.
From the Alternate forecasted value to summarize list, select the value to use for the forecasted value summarization. The summarized value is used to draw the summary line or bar chart at the bottom of the interactive charts.
From the Alternate lower confidence to summarize list, select the value to use for the lower confidence summarization. The summarized value is used to draw the summary line or bar chart at the bottom of the interactive charts.
From the Alternate upper confidence to summarize list, select the value to use for the upper confidence summarization. The summarized value is used to draw the summary line or bar chart at the bottom of the interactive charts.
From the Summarization graph type list, select the type of graph to use to represent summary data in an interactive indicator.
From the Summarization function list, select the function to use to summarize data in an interactive indicator.
In the Custom label for summary graph field, type the text to use to replace the default title for the summary graph in an interactive indicator.
From the Default data color field, select the default color for representing data in an interactive indicator.
Select Show legend to specify that the legend is displayed in the indicator.
(Required) From the Summarize by list, select the value to use to summarize data in an interactive indicator.
From the Column group by list, select the value that you want to use to group columns of data. If you do not want to group the columns, select (none).
From the Detail axis format list, select the SAS format to apply to the data on the detail axis.
From the Summary axis format list, select the format to apply to the data on the summary axis.

Sample Data Structure

To create an interactive summary and bar chart, you must provide two variables (X-axis value and summarize by) and at least two measures (bar value, forecasted value). In this example, the data from 2011 also provides values for the optional lower and upper confidence settings.

The following data sample is associated with the figure previously shown. Underneath each column heading is its associated display setting.

Region/Country (Column group by)	Product Line (X-axis value)	Delivery Date (Summarize by)	Actual (Bar value)	Forecast (Forecasted value)	Lower Limit (Lower confidence)	Upper Limit (Upper confidence)
Asia	Children	01/01/2009	$4,454.00	$5,418.00
Asia	Children	02/01/2009	$3,456.10	$5,418.00
Asia	Children	01/01/2011		$11,292.68	$4,451.85	$18,141.50
Asia	Children	02/01/2011		$10,281.50	$3,349.61	$17,213.39
Europe	Children	01/01/2009	$18,045.60	$24,646.82
Europe	Children	02/01/2009	$17,145.60	$25,983.78
Europe	Children	01/01/2011		$48,590.64	$9,029.84	$88,151.43
Europe	Children	02/01/2011		$49,339.80	$9,342.16	$89,337.44
U.S.	Children	01/01/2009	$24,677.70	$26,960.89
U.S.	Children	02/01/2009	$20,917.20	$28,943.96
U.S.	Children	01/01/2011		$88,852.77	$41,141.66	$136,563.88
U.S.	Children	02/01/2011		$82,747.69	$34,497.79	$130,997.59

For the best results when using this interactive indicator, the indicator data must meet the following requirements:

The indicator data must be suitable for a bar chart. Indicator data that returns a single row and that is suitable for a KPI indicator is not suitable for an interactive indicator.
The indicator data must contain one low-cardinality grouping column that is used to summarize the data. A low-cardinality grouping column is a column that has a small number of unique values to group by.
(Optional) To enable an interactive indicator to express forecasting data to business users, the indicator data must contain a column for forecasted values, for lower confidence values, and for upper confidence values.

An interactive indicator can summarize either the detail data expressed in the detail charts or can summarize a different field of data.

At the indicator level, the setup of the interactive indicator is essentially the same as for bar charts, except that the use of data for the interactive indicators is more sophisticated. The only significant difference is that the interactive indicators support the concept of dependent ranges. A dependent range takes the value of another range for the range definition. This scheme enables a data set generated by the SAS Forecast Server to be useful to the SAS BI Dashboard and the interactive indicators without the need for complicated intermediary data transformations.