• Title and Description
• Axis Settings
• Borders and Colors
• Tooltip
• Format
• Legend Settings
• Adding Threshold
• Chart Drill Down Path
• Customizing Chart Color
• Format options in charts
• Displaying images in charts

When designing a chart, Zoho Analytics offers wide range of options to customize the chart and improve the overall appearance in different ways. In this section we will discuss about various options provided by Zoho Analytics to customize the chart that you create.

Title and Description 

Zoho Analytics provides options to customize the chart title, description and data display in the General tab.
To customize these settings :

• Open the corresponding chart.
• Click Settings option in the toolbar. The Settings screen General tab will open as shown in the following screenshot.

The following table describes various options in general tab.

• Click Apply once you have set all required options.

 Axis Settings

Zoho Analytics will automatically set values for chart axes properties such as X-axis and Y-axis labels, axis range, interval between labels, etc., while creating a chart. You can also customize these properties to suit your needs using the Axis tab in the Settings screen.

To customize axis settings:

• Open chart and then click Settings option in the toolbar.
• The Settings screen will open. Click the Axis tab. You can also open the Axis tab by clicking the settings icon next to X/Y Axis in Edit Mode.

The following table describes various options available in Axis tab.

 Borders and Colors

When a chart is created, Zoho Analytics will set the default background and border for the new chart. However, you can customize these setting to enhance the look and feel of the chart. The Borders & Colors tab in the Settings screen provides various options to customize the chart appearance.

• To customize the chart appearance:
• Open the chart and then click Settings option in the toolbar.
• The Settings screen will open. Click the Borders & Colors tab.
• Customize the chart and then click Apply.

The following screenshot illustrates the Borders & Colors tab.

The following table describes various options available in the Borders & Colors tab.

 Tooltip

The Tooltip tab will be available only when a column is added in Tooltip field while creating the chart. This enable you to format the data for the chart tooltip.
To customize the chart tooltip:

• Open chart and then click Settings button.
• The Settings screen will open. Click the Tooltip tab.
• Specify the tooltip label name in Label field.
• Click Format link to format the data for the tooltip. The options in the Format column dialog will vary depending the data type of the column. These options will be similar to that of the table column formatting. For more details refer here.

The following screenshot illustrates the Tooltip tab.

Format

Zoho Analytics allows you to format all the columns used in the report creation individually. You can also format the data labels and tooltips individually. 

Watch the below video to learn more.

 Legend Settings

Legend in a chart provides a quick overview of the different data series involved in the chart along with the color associated with each series. Legend consists of Legend Title and Legend Items. Each legend item consists of a colored box that indicates the data series and the name of the data series.

In Zoho Analytics, by default, the legend will be placed on the right side of the chart and legend items will be added to it depending on the data series involved in the chart. You can customize the legend position, legend title, legend filters and the colors of each data series easily.

To customize the legend:

• Open the corresponding chart and click Settings option in the toolbar.

• The Settings screen will open. Click the Legend tab.

• The Legend tab provides various options to customize the legend properties. Set the options as required and click Apply.

The following table describes the options available in the Legend tab:

You can also change the color of each data series using the corresponding legend item in Edit mode. Refer to the Customizing Chart Colors section to know how to customize chart color using legend.

 Adding Threshold

Zoho Analytics provides you an option to draw threshold lines in a chart to highlight specific values. Threshold lines can be added horizontally or vertically at a fixed value on the X or Y-axis of a chart. A threshold will be useful to highlight specific values for better visualization and for comparing the data series.

For example, you can set a threshold line to represent maximum sale target, and another to represent the lowest acceptable sales target to spot regions that are out of sales target easily. Zoho Analytics allows you to add two types of threshold lines - Static and Dynamic Threshold lines.

Static Threshold: The Static threshold function allows you to set a constant value as a threshold line. 

To add a threshold in your chart:

• Open the corresponding chart and then click Settings option in the toolbar.

• Click the Threshold tab in the Settings screen.

  

• Select the Scope of the Threshold, the available options are

  • Entire Table: Applies the same threshold for the entire table.

  • Per Cell: Applies a threshold for a single cell. This option is recommended while creating dynamic thresholds.
    It is not applicable for charts with multiple columns in Y axis.

• Select the reference axis from the Reference Axis drop-down.

• Select Constant from the Value drop-down and enter a value.

• Enter the desired name of the threshold line in the Name text box.

• Select the line type and color from the Formatting drop-down.

• You can add more thresholds using the +Add Threshold link.

• Click Apply once you have added required threshold lines.

Dynamic Threshold: The Dynamic threshold feature allows you to apply dynamic functions such as Sum, Average, Minimum and Maximum over the columns in your reference axis or over a different column.

To add a threshold in your chart:

• Open the corresponding chart and then click Settings option in the toolbar.

• Click the Threshold tab in the Settings screen.

• Select the Scope of the Threshold, the available options are

  • Per Cell: Applies a threshold for a single cell. Not applicable for columns with multiple Y axis.
    Shown below is a sample screenshot displaying the threshold line based on the per cell. It displays the average sales per cell.

  

  • Entire Table: Applies the same threshold for the entire table.
    Shown below is a sample screenshot displaying the threshold line for the entire table.  It displays the average sales for the entire table.

  

• Select the reference axis in the Reference Axis drop-down.

• Select the function that you wish to apply from the Value drop-down. You can add dynamic functions such as Sum, Avg, Min, and Max on the reference axis column or on a different column.

  

• Enter the desired name of the threshold line in the Name text box.

• Select the line type and color from the Formatting drop-down.

• You can add more thresholds using the +Add Threshold link.

• Click Apply once you have added required threshold lines.

The following screenshot illustrates a chart with two threshold lines.

You can remove an existing threshold any time using the Remove link next to the corresponding threshold in the Settings screen. 

 Chart Drill Down Path

Zoho Analytics allows you to drill down on your chart, enabling you to do powerful exploratory analytics. With this, You can click on any point in the chart and visualize the underlying data points as a new chart. Zoho Analytics by default provides a Drill Down path for the Charts. 

You can also specify a custom drill down path for your charts using the Drill Down tab of the Settings page. 

Setting a drill down path 

Follow the steps below to configure a drill down path for your chart.

1. Open the corresponding chart and click the Settings option in the toolbar.

2. The Settings screen will open. Click the Drill Down tab.

3. The Drill Down tab will open.

4.  In case if there are any drill paths already defined at the table level it will be displayed by default. You can modify the drill down paths or define a new path for the chart axis.  

5. You can define drill down path for X-Axis Path and Color Path.

   

6. Click Apply. The drill down path will be defined for this chart. This will be listed in your chart as Drill Down To 'Column Name to drill down'.

   

This path is specific to the chart where you are defining it. If you want to define the path globally (i.e., for all charts), then you need to define that for the corresponding columns at the table level. To know more refer this documentation.

Disabling drill down

You can disable the drill down option in your chart by deselecting the required options in the Drill Down tab of the chart's Settings page. 

• Drill Down: Deselect this to remove the drill down option from your chart completely.

• X-Axis Path: Deselect this to remove the drill down option based on X-Axis' column path.

• Color Path: Deselect this to remove the drill down option based on the chart's Color column.

• Allow Dynamic Drill Down: Deselect this to remove the dynamic Drill Down By option from the chart. 

 Customizing Chart Color

In Zoho Analytics, when you create a chart, colors to represent the various data series involved will be automatically assigned to your chart. This will be picked from the color palette assigned to your chart. However, you can change the default colors of the data series.

To customize the data series colors in your chart:

• Open your chart in Edit Design Mode.
• Click on the color box of the legend item of the data series for which you want to change the color.
• Select Change the Legend Color option in the menu that shows up.
• A color picker dialog opens. Choose the required color from the full range of colors available. You can also specify the color by specifying the RGB value or the Hexadecimal value in the corresponding fields provided or choose a color from the listed color palette.
• Click OK after choosing the required color.

The newly chosen color will show up in your chart for the corresponding data series as shown below.

You can also customize the legend colors using the Legend tab in the Settings option. Refer to the legends section to learn more.

We have now seen how to customize the chart colors for a single chart. It is also possible to change the chart colors for all the charts in your Workspace. Refer to the color palette document to learn more.

Format options in charts 

The format menu offers a centralized location to customize the X-axis, Y-axis, color, and tooltip.
To customize these components,  

• Click on the Settings button > Select the Format menu.
• Click on the Format button beside the Tooltip Label.

For date fields, you can choose from a list of date formats, or create your own custom format using the text box.

The format options for a currency type column are: 

• Currency Symbol - you can choose country-specific currency symbols from the drop-down.
• Units - You can select units in the range of Thousands (K), Millions (M), Billions (B), or choose Auto to let Zoho Analytics display the closest unit. 
• Decimal Places - You can choose to display up to 10 decimal places for a column. 
• Negative Number Display - You can choose how sub-zero values are displayed on your charts. 

Similarly, for a percentage value data type, you can select the number of decimal places, separator, and choose to show or hide the percentage symbol.

Please refer to the Forecasting options in the charts from this page.

Note:
1. You can use all the three methods to format Week & Year Format of the columns with Date data type.
2. The changes made will be applied only to this report. There are five Week & Year Formats available - Short, Medium, Long, Start Date, and End Date.



3. You can also change the Week & Year format for the entire workspace. Click here to learn more.

Displaying images in charts

Zoho Analytics allows you to display images in the place of text in a chart's axis. You can do this by converting the image URLs in a table into the corresponding images.

The following is a sample table with an image URL column:

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Follow the steps below to convert the image URLs into the corresponding images in charts:

• Open the required chart in the Edit Design mode.

• Add the image URL column to either the X or Y-axis shelves, or the Color shelf and click the Click Here to Generate Graph button.

  

• Click the Settings icon in the top-right corner.

  ​

• Navigate to the Format section and click the required Format link.

  In the pop-up that appears, choose Image from the Display As drop-down, select the required dimension from the Image Dimension drop-down, and click OK.

  You can also provide custom dimensions for the images using the Custom option under the Image Dimension section.

  

• Click Apply to replace the URL text with the corresponding images in the chart.

  ​

Note: Images cannot be displayed inside Tooltips.