Chart blocks

Turn any saved query into a chart on your dashboard

AlphaNodes online training, about 5 minutes · Reporting 4.7 and newer

What is a chart block?

A chart block is a dashboard block whose name starts with "Chart:". It shows a graphical evaluation of one kind of entry, for example issues, spent time or projects.

  • Users with the matching permission or administrators add it to a dashboard when needed, up to eight times per block type
  • New in Reporting 4.7: they configure what it evaluates and how it looks
  • Chart: Issues, Chart: Spent time, Chart: Logs and Chart: Projects work this way

Existing dashboards are converted during the update, field by field.

Which charts can I use?

Which charts can I use?

Nine display types of a chart block: doughnut, pie and treemap for shares, horizontal bars, vertical bars and table to compare values, line, area and calendar for a date field

Which questions can I answer?

Five example questions: issues by status as doughnut, open issues per project as horizontal bars, open issues by category as treemap, issues created and closed per month this year as two bar charts side by side, issue lifetime as a line of median days, plus the tip to put such analyses on a dashboard of their own

The settings behind them

The settings behind them

  • Status, project, category: Chart: Issues, group by that field. "Open issues only" leaves closed issues out.
  • Created and closed per month: two blocks. One with a query "Created: this year", grouped by Created per month. One with a query "Closed: this year", grouped by Closed per month. "Open issues only" stays off.
  • Issue lifetime: its own block, Chart: Issue lifetime, the median days from created to closed per week or month.
  • Hours per activity this month against last month: Chart: Spent time, period "this month", group by Activity, compare with the previous period.

The permission "Save dashboards" creates a dashboard of its own for such analyses, "Share dashboards" opens it to the stakeholders.

How do I set it up?

Data source, group by, measure and display type as the four settings of a chart block

See it in 48 seconds

Configuring a block, in 48 seconds

Open the block settings, pick the query, the field and the chart type, save. The sentence at the top tells what the block will show.

The result on the dashboard

Chart block My open issues by project, split by priority, as horizontal bars with the table of values next to it

Query "My open issues", grouped by project, split by priority, horizontal bars with the table of values. Every bar and number links to the list behind it.

Going further

  • Split: each bar stacked by a second field, such as priority
  • Compare: a second query, or the previous period
  • Top entries: the largest values, the rest as "Others"

Split and compare need bars, lines, areas or the table. Doughnut and pie show shares of one whole.

Dates and numbers

Dates and numbers behave differently

A date field becomes a timeline per week, month, quarter or year, or a calendar of days; a number field becomes ranges

One block type, every plugin

The same chart block for issues, projects and spent time in Reporting, users and attendance in HRM, contacts and invoices in ServiceDesk, DB entries, passwords and changesets

More below

The same block in the other plugins

  • HRM: users and attendance
  • ServiceDesk: contacts and invoices
  • DB entries, passwords and changesets

Learn the block once, use it everywhere. Only the fields differ.

In short

Pick a query, pick a field, pick a chart. The dashboard answers the question your team asks every week.

Good to know

  • A block counts only what the viewer may see
  • Up to eight blocks of one type per dashboard
  • Also new: Chart: Issue lifetime, days from created to closed

Requires Reporting 4.7. The blocks of the other plugins need their current version.

See it live

Try the chart blocks in our online demo

alphanodes.com/redmine-demo

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