topic Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points in QlikView

Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

mhouck01 — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:23:02 GMT

I'm having an issue with a chart that I'm trying to create monitoring drive sizes on our servers. I want to set up a graph with the date across the bottom and show all of our server drives as individual lines. We have about 8 servers with several drives each.

I'm not sure what is going on, but when I create the chart with dimensions Date and Server Drive Name, then a measure =sum(DriveSize - FreeSpace), the chart displays only one or two dates across the bottom with a huge space between them. If I maximize the width of the chart then I get maybe 3 or 4 dates, but there is always about an inch or two of space between each date. This is obviously unacceptable, since I want to be able to show the last few months on the chart. Here's an example... I have about 1.5 months worth of data, but it only shows the first 4 days. And that is only when I stretch it halfway across my screen... if I shrink it down at all then it only shows 1 or two values:

I played with every setting that I could think of: Adding a scrollbar allows access to the other values, but the dates are still limited. I tried all sorts of combinations of showing and hiding values, that didn't help. My data has values for all the other dates, so it's not hiding missing values or anything.

I finally turned on "Continuous" in the axis setting... and that seemed to work. But after a couple reloads of the data something even more bizarre happened:

The lines now double back on one another! It is showing all the dates across the bottom... but some of the lines are basically going crazy and skipping around, doubling back, etc. I checked and rechecked the data and I have one and only one value for drive size and free space per date per drive, so it's not like I have multiples here.

Can anyone tell me what is going on? What I *want* to have is all of my dates across the bottom with each server drive represented by a separate line. Why is this so difficult?

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

stigchel — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:45:12 GMT

In the general tab set the chart type to combo chart, then in the Style tab set SubType to grouped.

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

mhouck01 — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:50:50 GMT

It already is a Combo chart with a subtype of grouped.

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

stigchel — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:55:32 GMT

Can you share a sample app demonstrating your problem?

If you're worried about data sensitivity, have a look here

Preparing examples for Upload - Reduction and Data Scrambling

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

mhouck01 — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:21:42 GMT

Sure, here is an example file. When no server or drive is selected, the graph only shows one date. This version doesn't seem to be doing the doubling-back issue, but that only happens once I select "Continuous" in the chart properties.

I would like the dates to be packed together nicely like this, which is what happens if only one drive is selected:

Or have it so that I can select what the step is across the bottom (like every 10 days, etc).

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

mhouck01 — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:22:49 GMT

The file I uploaded has just one drive selected, remove that selection and you'll see the issue.

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

stigchel — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:59:59 GMT

Hi Michael,

Yes strange, the space between the dates seems to increase as the number of possible values in the second dimension increase. No idea why, I've never encountered it as I generally don't try to display so many lines at one time.

You could ask yourself whether a line chart is the ideal representation for this, especially with so little variation. I would advice to at least limit the number of one or maybe even two of the dimensions. The time you can offcourse group to a higher level of weeks or months, for the server drive name you can maybe consider grouping these e.g. using a rank based on the calculation. See example attached.

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

swuehl — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:03:39 GMT

You want it more like this?

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

mhouck01 — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:04:14 GMT

Thanks... I was wondering if I was doing something wrong but it looks like it's just a weird "feature" of QlikView.

Most of the time our users are selecting one drive, but it was actually kind of handy to view all the lines with very little variation because any spikes would immediately stand out. What I'll probably do is set up some conditional dimensions to show each server when no server is selected and then drives when one server is selected. That should reduce the number of lines and give me a better result.

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

stigchel — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:16:08 GMT

Ah, the thin bars and all bars display options in the presentation tab, did not think of that...

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

swuehl — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:23:33 GMT

Yes, no idea why one needs this in that scenario.

It should also work fine by just switching the original sample chart type to line chart (in case there is no need for additional bars).

Re: Strange Chart Behavior - Huge Spacing Between X axis points

mhouck01 — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:30:56 GMT

Ahh... that worked perfectly! Thanks very much for that. Adding the Thin Bars and Show All Bars worked.

I do need it to be a Combo since when you drill into the main view then I show some extra informaton in bars.