Stacked Bars - How to display one thinner bar inside another (wider) bar ?

[quiquehm]

I need to use a Bar chart to display project actual hours versus project budgeted hours. So I have one dimension ( project tasks ) and two expressions ( actual hrs and budgeted hours ). Ideally I would need to have one bar ( actual hours ) inside the other bar ( budgeted hours ), both starting at 0.

This would help me to save a lot of space in the chart ( compared to using two bars side by side for every task ), and also task progress could be monitored easily , and hours overruns would quickly catch my attention ( the inside thinner bar would cross the outside bar )

I tried setting up a stacked bar chart and playing with the Bar Offsets of every expression, but I can´t make it work .

Does anybody know if this type of chart is possible in Qlikview ? Also, how is it possible to set up the bars width, so one ( the one inside ) is thinner than the second bar ?. Please see attached image of such display I got from another data visualization tool ( Tableau ).

I would appreciate any help on this.

Thank you

Enrique

[quiquehm]

Any advice from someone please ? I need to know if this is possible in QlikView somehow ...or just to forget about that display for the bar charts.

Thanks a lot for whatever help / advice you can give me

Enrique

[johnw]

I don't think you can do that directly. I suspect that in QV10 you could do it as an extension, but I have no idea how extensions work (I'm still on version 9). It wouldn't surprise me if someone's already written a bullet graph extension that you could use, though this is a little simpler than a bullet graph.

[quiquehm]

Thanks for your reply John. I have no experience either with version 10 yet, I simply downloaded it and briefly had a look at the new features and I also saw that Gantt Charts are now possible using the extension.

Does anybody have experience with QV10 extensions setting up bullet graphs ? Any instructions you could share here ?

Thanks a lot

[danielrozental]

I have messed around a bit with QlikView extensions, it's not too hard to do although there isn't much documentation about it.

I haven't done or seen a bullet graph extension.

Can't you just do a dot inside the bar? not really as nice but might be acceptable.

[quiquehm]

Daniel, how can I place a dot inside the bar ? Is this done just using a combo chart setting bars for the budgeted hrs and a line ( only displaying the dots ) for the actual hours ? or do I need to overlay two different charts ?

Thanks for the trick ...as you say it´s not so nice but could do the work.

I really would appreciate some feedback from someone who already setup bullet graphs in QlikView. In fact I don´t understand how that type of chart is not available already as a subtype within the bar charts. I am not a relative of Stephen Few, but I think the bullet graph is a very interesting space efficient chart.

[danielrozental]

You can do that with a combo chart just as you said.

Or you could use a sparkline, take a look at the Data Visualization sample, Sparklines tab.

[#8]

Hi,

have a look at this [View:http://andpointsbeyond.com/2008/05/02/create-a-bullet-graph-in-qlikview-video/:550:0]

It explains how to create a bullet chart, ovelaying 2 charts a gauge & a bar chart.

it's a little bit tricky & not user friendly. Maybe in a new QV version Bullet chart will appear as new object

JJ

[#9]

sorry the link doesn't display

http://andpointsbeyond.com/2008/05/02/create-a-bullet-graph-in-qlikview-video

[johnw]

Enrique wrote:I really would appreciate some feedback from someone who already setup bullet graphs in QlikView. In fact I don´t understand how that type of chart is not available already as a subtype within the bar charts. I am not a relative of Stephen Few, but I think the bullet graph is a very interesting space efficient chart.

See attached for an example bullet graph.

But I don't think this will help you. The problem is that this approach (the same as the one used in the link and in the finance controlling demo), lets you create single bullet charts, NOT bullet charts that are part of a chart with multiple rows. The finance controlling demo LOOKS like the bullet graphs are part of a bigger chart, but that's only because the person carefully lined up a lot of separate charts and text boxes and so on to LOOK like it's one chart.

Now, first, that's a TON of work to go to. But more importantly, it only works if the rows of your chart are fixed, and not dimension values that you can select and change. It appears to me that your rows are project and task details. These are almost certainly dimension values and selectable. You almost certainly want your graph to respond, so that if someone selects Project 2, you only show that project and its details.

Thus me pinning my hope on extensions. I'm pretty sure you could make a bullet graph extension, and that people already have. I'm less confident that you could use this as a representation for data in a straight table. I'm doubtful, actually. But I could be wrong, and it's the best approach I've thought of.

I think bullet charts should be supported, but I'm personally not a fan because I think they are largely meaningless to untrained people on first glance (and probably on second and third). Yes, it's a space-efficient chart for displaying a lot of information, but that is its weakness as well as its strength - there's just TOO MUCH information in too dense a region for most users. There is also no natural interpretation like "oh, obviously that tick mark is such and such". I can't even remember myself, and I've read a couple of Stephen's books and fiddled with bullet graphs in QlikView. When you densely pack information, that information has to be obvious. I just don't think it is in a bullet graph.

I think the graph you showed is a nice compromise, though, if you can get it working. There are only two pieces of information in each instead of four. I think that makes it simple enough to be clear and readable for an untrained user.