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Line chart

Owned by Helen Gosper
Last updated: Mar 04, 2024 by Denise McGettigan
4 min read

Availability:

  • Summary view - All modes except for Transaction mode.

  • Focused view (when you select and focus on items in a dimension) - Period and Moving mode only.

A Line chart plots performance over time and allows you to spot trends and make comparisons, for example, a customer's sales for this year vs. last year.

 

Summary view

Focused view

Contents

There is a blue line for the current period (or stream) and a red line for the previous period (or other stream).

There is a line for each of the focused items.

X-axis

The X-axis displays the time units of your current period. 

Y-axis

The Y-axis displays the total or value of each measure, which starts at zero.

Example

Example 1 - Create a Line chart

In the Sales database, create a Line chart to compare the sales of a particular product this year compared to last year. 

  1. Prepare the data in the grid:

    1. In Period mode, select the Product dimension, then select and focus on the top ten products (highest sales).

    2. Select Period > Rolling 12 months.

    3. Click the Summary button to view the total of the selected products across the period.

  2. Click the Chart button in the top right toolbar above the grid.

  3. Click the Line chart category button on the left of the chart and select the Line option.

    The lines in the chart depict the current and previous values. You can see that the selected products are selling better in almost every month this year (blue) compared to last year (red). 

  4. (Optional) Select the Use cumulative option to chart current vs. previous cumulative for each time unit, rather than simply current vs. previous.

  5. (Optional) Save the chart as a favorite or add it to a dashboard.

Example 2 - Create a line chart that displays data for working days only

If you create a working day calendar in Phocas and select a day period type in the grid, you can apply a working day calendar to the Line chart.

For example, suppose your business operates from Tuesday to Saturday each week. Sunday and Monday are non-working days.

When you look at the data over a week, you see troughs on Sundays and Mondays where the values are 0 (expected), as illustrated by the highlighted areas in the image on the left below. You might prefer to show only working days (exclude non-working days) in the chart, to more accurately reflect what’s going on. In the image on the right below, you can see the data trend more clearly when Sundays and Mondays are removed from the chart.

In the Sales database, create a Line chart to compare the revenue earned in December this year compared to December last year. 

  1. In Period mode, Summary view, select a day type of period from the Period menu.

  2. Click the Chart button in the top right toolbar above the grid.

  3. Click the Line chart category button on the left of the chart and select the Line option.

  4. Select Filter by calendar and select the required calendar, such as Working Days, then click out of the box to apply your change. The chart updates to only display data for the working days.