Problems creating a chart for quarterly metrics

Kathy PPT

Hope everyone is enjoying their day! I would appreciate any assistance with my issue.

This is report that needs to be charted:

Here is how the chart comes out: How do I get it to show actual quarters and their numbers?

Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

Jgorsich

Your report is pulling information from a sheet and grouping it in a manner that makes sense for your report - that doesn't mean it is grouping it in a manner that makes sense for your chart though. Make a helper sheet that pulls the data from the same source sheet as your report but organizes it according to how you want it displayed in your chart - then graph from that helper sheet instead of your report or your original source sheet.

The charting system is hyper literal - it will graph with the exact level of precision and labelling as in the sheet it is pulling data from, so something like 99% of the time you've got to format your data specifically for display on your chart the way you want it, which is almost never the ideal way to enter your data or read your data, so helper sheets (just sheets that run in the background to handle this kind of stuff and aren't really interacted with or looked at once your dashboard is working as you design them to be auto-updating) are the way to go.

Jgorsich

@Kathy PPT - absolutely. It isn't really a formal term :). Basically, I just call any sheet I create to do stuff in the background that no one but me should ever really think about as a "helper sheet". Now you can make your graph from this sheet instead of your other one and it should look a bit more like what you want - if not, you can reformat and rearrange as needed until it DOES give you the graph you want without worrying about messing up the readability of your primary report. It all pulls from the same data (or, at least, should) and so it just helps you make your graph look the way you want it to.

Jgorsich

Your report is pulling information from a sheet and grouping it in a manner that makes sense for your report - that doesn't mean it is grouping it in a manner that makes sense for your chart though. Make a helper sheet that pulls the data from the same source sheet as your report but organizes it according to how you want it displayed in your chart - then graph from that helper sheet instead of your report or your original source sheet.

The charting system is hyper literal - it will graph with the exact level of precision and labelling as in the sheet it is pulling data from, so something like 99% of the time you've got to format your data specifically for display on your chart the way you want it, which is almost never the ideal way to enter your data or read your data, so helper sheets (just sheets that run in the background to handle this kind of stuff and aren't really interacted with or looked at once your dashboard is working as you design them to be auto-updating) are the way to go.

Kathy PPT

Hi @Jgorsich

Thank you for replying. I've been working on this and have created another sheet shown here. Does this qualify as a "helper" sheet?

Jgorsich

@Kathy PPT - absolutely. It isn't really a formal term :). Basically, I just call any sheet I create to do stuff in the background that no one but me should ever really think about as a "helper sheet". Now you can make your graph from this sheet instead of your other one and it should look a bit more like what you want - if not, you can reformat and rearrange as needed until it DOES give you the graph you want without worrying about messing up the readability of your primary report. It all pulls from the same data (or, at least, should) and so it just helps you make your graph look the way you want it to.