Chart Formatting

Erica Cole

I've created a chart that color codes requisitions by open or closed, its a pie chart to be specific. It works perfectly when neither of the values is zero. However when I get with a day with zero "open" for example, the formatting is lost. So that when I do get a day with "opens" Smartsheet shows the metric, but assigns it a random new color and not the color I originally coded it for. Is there a solution for this?

Genevieve P.

Thank you for clarifying! That is very strange. I tested on my own charts and as long as the chart is still referencing the same cells when it turns to 0 and back, the colour formatting stays.

My tests have the chart widget looking directly into a section of a sheet, though. Where is your source coming from, is it from a Sheet or a Report?

Genevieve P.

Hi @Erica Cole

Would you be able to provide screen captures of what you're describing? (An image with values, how it appears with 0 as a value, then how it appears once you add data in again. It would also be helpful to see an image of the source data, but please block out sensitive information).

If you have pre-set the colour coding for those specific titles (ex. "Open"), then when values appear it should retain the same colour as you set before. It should only create new colours if the title/data is entirely new (ex. "Open 1" and now a new "Open 2", instead of the same column or row housing the value). Does that make sense?

Cheers,

Genevieve

Erica Cole

Hi Genevieve,

Thank you for answering. Your comment did make me realize this isn't happening with all of my widgets. And it likely deals with how I set up the data source they pull from. I am attaching screenshots of what happens. Note in Capture 1 I have 2 requisitions. One is Pending and 1 is Interviewing. They are the correct colors and match the color of the corresponding metrics above the widget. In capture 2 - I have moved 1 requisition back to the Open status, but it did not pick up the previously assigned color for open. It reverted to blue, when it should be the burgundy color of the corresponding metric above.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Erica Cole

Metric Widgets and Chart Widgets aren't synced in terms of colours, so you'll need to ensure that the Chart Widget it set to have "Open" be burgundy (as well as the Metric widget, separately).

Edit > Pie Chart & Series > Series

Once you've adjusted it here, the colour should stay as you update the source data. Are you finding that after you've made the colour change here and Saved your dashboard, it reverts?

Erica Cole

Right. They do have separate formatting. I included the metric widgets so you could see the colors that I did assign to those values.

Now that I don't have an "interviewing" value when I try to edit the series, it doesn't give me an option to set a color for "interviewing" so when it does go back to interviewing, it will have a randomly assigned color as well. When I designed this widget I had a req in each status so I was able to set the colors for each. But whenever a status is a zero, the next time it shoes up Smartsheet is randomly assigning it a color.

Genevieve P.

Thank you for clarifying! That is very strange. I tested on my own charts and as long as the chart is still referencing the same cells when it turns to 0 and back, the colour formatting stays.

My tests have the chart widget looking directly into a section of a sheet, though. Where is your source coming from, is it from a Sheet or a Report?

Erica Cole

I just tested it as well by moving that req back to interviewing. It came back with my assigned color. I think the verdict at this point is user error :/ . This workspace has dozens of dashboards and its possible when I formatted this widget there wasn't an open value.

I guess sometimes we just need someone to help us talk it out. I just started building dashboards this year and when something happens out of the ordinary I tend to over react. Faith in Smartsheet restored :D

Genevieve P.

I'm glad it's working for you now! 🙂Let me know if this happens again.