pie chart formatting - many pies can't get one pie 1

[Ashimmalik]

Hello I am creating a pie chart and keep getting many pies with no slices. Do I need to call text support?

Thank you.

 

[JRO061601]

Calling TECH support is always an option, but I think I can help you get your sliced pie. Let's say you want a pie chart showing Sales by Category. Normally you would put Sales along the columns and Category along the rows in order to get a cross-tabulated report. If you want to show this graphically in a pie chart, what you need to do instead is put both the attribute - Category - and metric - Sales - along the columns. You will get the same numbers in a tabulated (not cross-tabulated) report. This orientation should give you the pie chart you are looking for.

If this works for you, I will accept a thank you in the form of a lemon meringue pie.

 

[Ashimmalik]

JRO061601 thank you for your quick replying to me.

I do not have any metrics on my report. Then I made the report tabular as you suggested. I am now trying to pivot the pie chart that is working now and it does not rotate. Is there a way to do 3-D data viewing in microstrategies? If not could you suggest a product that can do this?

Thank you. I am not sure what a meringe is but I will send it to you!

 

[JRO061601]

First off, if you don't have any metrics or measures on your report, I have no clue what in blazes you are trying to display with a pie chart. You might want to reconsider your approach.

However, assuming you are happy with you pie chart, there are a bunch of formatting options available to you. On the toolbar, if you click 'Graph' and then 'Graph Options', a dialog box will come up with multiple tabs and multiple options per tab. The 'General' tab will allow you to control the tilt, depth, rotation, and relative explosion factor of the pie.

This is of course assuming you are working in Desktop. I'm not sure what your 3D data visualization requirements are. Graphing in MicroStrategy is pretty good, but it isn't exactly an IMAX movie for the end user. I'm sure there are other data visualization tools that offer much more, but I'm not the person to ask.

And if you're not sure what lemon meringue is, I'll settle for a nice sweet piece of cherry pie.

"She's my cherry pie
Cool drink of water such a sweet surprise
Tastes so good makes a grown man cry
Sweet Cherry Pie"

--Warrant

 

[Ashimmalik]

JRO061601 - can you explain me how to see this report in 3-D in microstrategies or crystal reports?

select a12.CategoryID CategoryID,
max(a15.CategoryName) CategoryName,
a14.Country Country,
a13.CustomerID CustomerID,
max(a14.CompanyName) CompanyName,
sum(a11.Discount) WJXBFS1,
((sum(a11.Quantity) * sum(a11.UnitPrice)) - (sum(a11.Quantity) * sum(a11.Discount))) WJXBFS2,
(sum(a11.Quantity) * sum(a11.UnitPrice)) WJXBFS3,
(sum(a11.Quantity) * sum(a11.Discount)) WJXBFS4
from [Order Details] a11
join Products a12
on (a11.ProductID = a12.ProductID)
join Orders a13
on (a11.OrderID = a13.OrderID)
join Customers a14
on (a13.CustomerID = a14.CustomerID and
a13.ShipName = a14.CompanyName)
join Categories a15
on (a12.CategoryID = a15.CategoryID)
where a12.CategoryID in (1, 3, 4, 5)
group by a12.CategoryID,
a14.Country,
a13.CustomerID

 

[JRO061601]

Sure. Judging by the SQL, you have 3 attributes that you have included in your report - Category, Country, and Customer. Now if you run this report in MicroStrategy, you will get back a tabulated or cross-tabulated report, depending on what your template looks like. Either way, this output is inherently a two-dimensional, or '2D' report. If you want to see this in 3D (e.g. be able to conduct analysis with one of your attributes along a hypothetical z-axis*), you can use the 'Page-By' functionality. On the toolbar, click on 'View' and then 'Show Page-by'. You'll notice a sub-window show up. Simply drag and drop whatever attribute you want into that window. It'll now show up along the z-axis - projecting straight into your computer!!! You can even add multiple attributes to the z-axis. Now you can page by these attributes whilst viewing the normal x- and y-axis on your monitor. Pretty impressive, huh?

Footnotes:
* - The use of the z-axis is purely a matter of preference, as different users might define their own local coordinate system in different ways. Personally, I define the x-axis as projecting from a point of origin on my computer screen (0,0) directly to the right, and the the y-axis projects from the same origin directly up. Finally, my z-axis starts at the same point of origin, and projects directly into the monitor. The page-by functionality will hold up under any rotation or translation of this coordinate system.

 

[Ashimmalik]

JRO061601 thank you kindly for your assistance. I will read more on page-by. I will look to integrate microstrategies with other data vizualization tools using the page-by SDK. I see you. bye.

 

[chael]

Ashimmalik - I haven't seen too much come out about data visualization through MicroStrategy. I think part of what you are looking for could be related to the way MicroStrategy used to be able to present data in the 6.x and below versions with the ActiveX graphing component. Nowadays your best bet is to look into third party applications, such as MapInfo (I think it still exists), or other industry standard visualization tools.

Because MicroStrategy leverages XML, there have to be products out there that are able to convert XML documents and format them into 3 dimensional formats. JRO061601 is right on target by saying that page-by analysis is a way to achieve a three dimensional view on your data. If you really need to see pretty pictures that can be rotated and manipulated then you will have to either like what MicroStrategy has, or look to integrate something else into it.

Chael