Creating Vertical Stacked Bar Charts


Use a vertical stacked bar chart when you want to view information for one dimension within another dimension. For example, when you want to see which product subcategories accounted for the most sales within each product category.

If you use one measure in the Vertical bucket and one dimension in the Horizontal bucket, a simple bar chart is created, with no stacked segments. Vertical stacked bar charts require at least one measure and one dimension. If you add a second measure to the Vertical bucket, a second series is created for the new measure and a new segment is placed on top of the first measure in each bar, as shown in the following image.


Additional measures increase the number of segments in a stack.

If you instead add a dimension field to the Color bucket, colored segments are created for each value in that dimension field, as shown in the following image.


Additional fields added to the color field create additional segments based on concatenated values.

The following display options are available for a vertical stacked bar chart:

  • Change chart orientation. Switches the horizontal and vertical axes, making the bars horizontal.
  • Chart layout options:
    • Stacked. When selected, creates a vertical stacked bar chart.
    • Side-by-Side. When selected, creates a vertical side-by-side bar chart, in which the series are placed side-by-side in groups.
    • Absolute. When selected, creates a vertical absolute bar chart, in which the series are layered in front of one another.
    • Percent. When selected, creates a vertical percent bar chart. Each series is stacked to show a proportion of each bar instead of their actual value.
  • Calculation options:
    • Summaries. Sums measure values for each sort value. This is the default.
    • Counts. Provides a count of records in the selected measure field, for each sort value.
    • Details. Displays the value of each individual record.
  • Clear buckets content. Empties all buckets.

You can add fields to the following buckets for a vertical stacked bar chart:

  • Vertical. The first field is added to the vertical axis to determine the height of each bar. Additional measures create additional segments in each bar. You can also choose to display multiple measures on different axes in a dual-axis chart by clicking the axis icon y1 axis icon. Additional dimensions create matrix rows.
  • Horizontal. The first field is added to the horizontal axis to create a bar for each unique value. You can click the icon in the bucket field label to toggle between using the field as a horizontal axis sort field  or matrix column .
  • Size. Controls the width of the bars based on a measure value.
  • Color. If a dimension field is used, creates segments for each value. If a measure field is used, applies a color scale to the bars.
  • Tooltip. The data placed in this bucket displays in the tooltip at run time. Can be used to make additional information available without changing the appearance of the chart.
  • Animate. Enables you to animate time progression using a slider control. As you move the control along the slider bar, an animation effect results. The slider control has a Play button that allows you to play and pause the animation. When you click Play, the Pause option is activated, enabling you to pause the progression and analyze your data. Slider controls are limited to one sort field and should be time or sequence related, such as month or year.
  • MultiPage. Enables the creation of multiple graphs based on the field that you place in this bucket. The MultiPage bucket is available for stand-alone charts. If you convert the chart to a page created from new content, the MultiPage bucket disappears.

Procedure: How to Create a Vertical Stacked Bar Chart

  1. Open WebFOCUS Designer. On the WebFOCUS start page, click the plus menu and then click Create Visualizations, or, on the WebFOCUS Home Page, click Visualize Data.

    WebFOCUS Designer opens in a new browser tab.

  2. Select a workspace and a data source available from that workspace.

    Once you select a data source, WebFOCUS Designer loads with options to create a single content item.

    Vertical stacked bar is the default chart type. If you have a different content type selected by default, select the vertical stacked bar chart option from the Content picker.

  3. Add one or more measures and dimensions to the chart.

    The vertical stacked bar chart refreshes with your selections.

  4. You can perform the following tasks with your vertical stacked bar chart:
    1. Add additional measures or dimensions to the chart, where applicable.
    2. Change the fields to obtain different information.
    3. Format the chart (for example, customize the header and footer or style the legend).
  5. Save your vertical stacked bar chart as a stand-alone chart, or as part of a page.