Asking questions
Charts
Four chart types, when each one is the right answer, and what you can do with a chart once it is on screen.
Getting a chart
- 1Press Widgets beside the composer and hover or tap Chart.
- 2Pick Bar, Line, Pie or Area from the submenu. Choosing a type is what switches charts on, so pressing Chart by itself only opens the submenu.
- 3Ask your question. The chart is drawn from the same query that produced the written answer, so the number in the text and the height of the bar are always the same number.
Which type to ask for
| Type | Use it for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Bar | Comparing separate things against each other | Revenue per branch, sales per product |
| Line | A value moving through time | Monthly revenue across the year |
| Area | A trend where the size of the total matters as much as the direction | Cumulative sales, stock level over a season |
| Pie | Parts of one whole, when there are only a few parts | Share of sales by channel |
Shaping the chart in words
You do not need a settings panel. Ask for what you want in the next message and the chart is redrawn: only the top ten, sorted from highest to lowest, by month instead of by day, excluding the branches that closed.
Comparisons work too. Asking for this year against last year on the same chart gives you two series rather than two charts.
On the chart itself
- Hover a bar, point or slice to see its exact value.
- Save it to keep it. A saved chart goes to the Saved Charts page, and can be pinned to your dashboard from there.
- Open a saved chart full screen from the Saved Charts page, which is where that control lives. There is none in the conversation itself.
Charts that hold their data
A saved chart is not a picture. It remembers the question that produced it, so pressing refresh on the Saved Charts page or on the dashboard re-runs the query and redraws it with today's numbers. A weekly chart you saved once keeps working every week.
When a chart does not appear
- Chart was not turned on when you sent the message. The setting applies to the message you send after choosing it, not to the one before.
- The answer is a single number. There is nothing to plot in one value, so ask for it broken down by something.
- Another output was on. Table, Map and File each turn Chart off.