The Enterprise Edition provides the capability to graph data with a few simple selections from the Report Charting and Report Columns sections of the  Layout  panel. 5 chart styles (Vertical bar, Horizontal bar, Line, Pie and Scatter-XY) are available with over 25 variations of these styles. There are over 40 chart characteristics that can be controlled. The following instructions describe the available controls and their use, along with examples of the resulting charts.

QLR Manager supports chart creation using two different chart generation packages, jpGraph and FusionCharts. jpGraph is a licensed version bundled with QLR Manager. FusionCharts is included as a fully functional evaluation copy, which produces charts that display the phrase "Evaluation copy" in the upper left corner of the chart. A production copy of FusionCharts can be purchased from Fusion Charts. To install the production version, simply copy the production files into QLR Manager's FusionCharts directory to overlay the evaluation version.

When creating a chart, the User can specify which of the two charting packages they wish to use. In addition, when choosing "Compare", the chart from both options will be displayed, allowing the User to choose which of the two options produces the more desirable output. jpGraph generally produces better results when smaller chart sizes are desired, primarily because it allocates a larger area for the data plots. jpGraph also produces png files which can be embedded directly into e-mails. In general, FusionCharts produces higher quality output, especially when creating Pie Charts and other charts in larger sizes. FusionCharts offers chart types that do not exist in jpGraph, such as Doughnuts, Scrolling Bar Charts, and 3 Dimensional Charts. FusionCharts does not create an Odometer chart type.

Some examples of the output from both charting packages are illustrated below.

The following will describe the steps of creating and modifying a chart. It will use the data from the following report when creating chart examples:

The Position determines where the chart will appear in relation to the report data.

A title can be entered to appear at the top of the chart. It is acceptable to use replacement strings within the title.

The default selection for Title font size is "auto". When auto is selected, QLR Manager will automatically calculate the font size for the title based on the size of the chart that is selected.

The Orientation determines how the chart will be displayed. Portrait is taller than it is wide, and Landscape is wider than it is tall.

The General style is used to define what type of chart will be produced. The styles consist of vertical bar, horizontal bar, line, pie and scatter (X/Y plot) charts.

The size value controls the size (pixels) of the chart produced. When Landscape orientation is used, the first value is the width. When Portrait orientation is used, the first value becomes the height. The smaller chart sizes are intended for use as charts that can be generated using QLR Manager's Report Object feature.

The data orientation setting determines how the data should be interpreted for plotting. It is best explained with two examples:

The query to produce the rows of data used in the chart examples above, looked something like this:

select region, month, plan, actual, actual*1.08 from sales
where region='southeast'

The data to be plotted was Column oriented

Had the data been stored differently, needing to be selected as follows, it would have been Row oriented:

select category, jan, feb, mar, apr, may, jun, jul, aug, sep, oct, nov, dec from sales
where region='southeast'

This option provides selections for an outer border around the chart. The selections include None, Line and 3D Shadow.

If checked and supported by the browser, this will force a page break between the chart and report table when printed.

The Margin is the border area around the chart. This sets the color for that area.

The Background refers to the back of the plot area. This sets the color for that area.

The Plot colors allow for the selection of colors to be used for each plot. 20 colors can be selected and the colors will be used in sequential order. If there are more plots than colors, the colors will be repeated starting with the first color.

The following chart has a 3D effect with modified margin and background colors.

When this option is checked, charts are produced using the FusionCharts default coloring scheme. To manually select colors for various elements of the chart, this option must be unchecked. This selection has no impact on charts created with jpGraph.

FusionCharts are created using Flash technology. They cannot be printed or saved unless they are converted to a file. Including the save option will allow the User to "right click" on a chart, and either print or choose a format in which to save the chart, such as a JPG, PNG, or PDF. This will produce a small message that appears below the chart instructing the User to right click on the chart in order to see the save options. This selection has no impact on charts created with jpGraph.

A title can be entered for the X axis. It is acceptable to use replacement strings within the title.

The default setting for the X axis font size is "auto". When auto is selected, QLR Manager will automatically calculate the font size based on the size of the chart that is selected.

If True Type fonts are installed, the angle of the X axis labels can be set to be 0,30,45,60 or 90 degrees. Without True Type fonts installed, only 0 and 90 degree labels are supported. If angles other than 90 degrees are chosen, they will be treated as 0 degrees.

If there are X axis labels whose length makes them too long for reasonable display, the number of characters can be limited by truncating the values. The length can be limited between 1 to 12 characters.

There are two ways to define the spacing for X axis labels. The "Frequency" method determines how often a label value is displayed on the X axis. The "Number of labels" method controls how many labels that will appear on the X axis. The first label value is always displayed.

How the Spacing value is applied is dependent on the Label spacing method. If a value of 5 is entered and "Frequency" is selected, every 5th entry will receive an X axis label. If "Number of labels" is specified, then 5 labels will be displayed regardless of the number of X axis values. Both methods require that the number of X axis plots be evenly divisible by the Spacing value or QLR Manager will adjust the number of labels accordingly.

Checking this value will display X axis grid lines for jpGraph, but will not have any affect on Fusion Charts. The Y axis grid lines are always displayed.

For this chart, the X axis frequency has been set to 3 and "Show grid lines" are checked.

A title can be entered for the Y axis. It is acceptable to use replacement strings within the title.

The default setting for the Y axis font size is "auto". When auto is selected, QLR Manager will automatically calculate the font size based on the size of the chart that is selected.

The Y axis scale can be set to be either Linear, Logarithmic, or Percent.

This option allows for the selection of the number of decimal places to be displayed for Y axis values.

The Y axis values are automatically created when a chart is generated. However, the minimum value can be manually set in this field. Please note that depending on the relative size of the numbers needed in the Y axis, the value entered may be modified when the chart is created with a minimum value.

The Y axis values are automatically created when a chart is generated. However, the maximum value can be manually set in this field. Please note that depending on the relative size of the numbers needed in the Y axis, the value entered may be modified when the chart is created with a maximum value.

Following is an example of a Horizontal Bar chart with Portrait orientation. Notice how the X and Y axis have been rotated. The Y axis information now appears on the top for jpGraph and on the bottom for FusionChart. The Maximum Y value has been set to 40 and the Legend is at the "Center Bottom". The title was created with the string of "&c1 region", which used the data from report column number 1 to determine the region for the chart.

This specifies the Location of where the legend will appear on the chart. The legend is comprised of a description of each of the sets of plot data. Depending on the size of the chart, and the number of items to appear in the legend, there may not be enough room to properly display the legend. It is up to the User to find a suitable placement for a legend.

Note: A legend is not displayed for Fusion Charts with a single set of plot data.

If there are items in the legend whose length makes the legend too long for reasonable display, the number of characters can be limited by truncating the values. The length can be limited between 1 to 12 characters.

Pie slices can be labeled in a variety of ways. The selections include no label (None), Percent, the actual Value, or the Legend label.

The Label can be set to appear inside or outside of the slice on Basic Pie Charts. For 3D pies, the label can only appear on the outside of the slices.

If the plot data results in more than one pie created, this setting specifies the maximum number of pies to chart horizontally across the chart. Selections range from 1 to 4. QLR Manager will support up to 5 rows of charts with 4 charts each, resulting in a maximum of 20 pies in a chart.

This field allows the User to specify which slices to explode in a pie chart. If multiple exploded slices are desired, each plot number is entered separated by a comma. For example, to explode slices 2 and 5, they would be entered as "2,5".

The following is an example of a pie chart with slices 2 and 5 exploded:

Odometers look like an old fashioned speedometer gauge in an automobile. These charts allow you to plot a single data point per gauge. Up to 25 gauges can be plotted in a chart.

This control allows you to set the gauge indicator (the needle) style. Tthe color of the needle can also be set using the Needle color control.

The color of the numbers that appear on the gauge are set with this control.

The gauge numbering interval provides control over how often tick marks appear on a gauge and how often that numbers appear next to the tick marks. A setting of "50,2" would set tick marks to appear at 50, with numbers appearing every 2nd tick, such as for 100, 200, etc.

This control allows the User to select the points at which the color pattern should change. The colors themselves are defined in the Plot Color control found in the General Characteristics section of Report Charting. If an entry of "300,600,800" is entered, 0 - 300 would get the first color of the Plot Colors, 300 - 600 would be given the second color and 600 - 800 would get the third color. Any area past the end of the range of these colors will be white.

This determines the numbers of gauges to plot horizontally. Up to 5 rows of gauges can be plotted.

These controls allow the starting and ending point for the gauge to be specified. If no values are given, the default of 0 and 100 are applied.

The following is an example of an odometer chart (jpGraph only):

When scatter charts are created, the first two selected plot columns are used as the X and Y plot values. This field specifies if the Y value is the first or second column found.

It may sometimes be desirable to create a chart that is a mixture of bars and lines. This can be accomplished by using a vertical or horizontal chart type, and then using this field to specify that certain plots (as referenced by their report column numbers) are to be treated as lines. If more that one plot is to be treated as a line, then the entries are separated by a comma. For example, to specify that the plots for columns 2 and 5 are to be line plots, they would be entered as "2,5".

The Line thickness selection controls the pixel size of lines used in line charts or bar charts with plotted lines. When a line thickness of 1 is applied, anti-aliasing (line smoothing) will be used. Anti-aliasing can only be used with a thickness of 1. This is a limitation of chart generation software (JPGraph).

The gradient selection allows the User to give their bars a "fading" effect. There are several settings: Vertical, Horizontal, Fade to top, and Fade to bottom. The following is an example of a vertical gradient setting. It also employs a Y axis scale type of "Percent" and a Chart use of "Plot+" to display the percentages above the bars. A legend is not displayed for Fusion Charts with a single set of plot data.

The Plot and Plot+ options only appear for numeric columns. This may present a problem if the User wishes to plot the results of applying the "Count" action to a column of non-numeric data. The work around for this situation is to add an addition column to the query select list, such as 1 as count. An Action of Count or Sum can be applied to the data in this new column. The data will be treated as numeric in nature, allowing the Plot and Plot+ Chart use options to appear.

Scatter charts are intended to plot two related sets of column information. One of the plot sets will determine the X axis values. The other will determine the Y Axis values that are plotted. If only one column is specified, it becomes the Y axis data. The X axis will be set as a sequential frequency. If more than two plot columns are specified, the extra columns are ignored.

The example below demonstrates a scatter chart's features.