STACKED BAR
The plot shows repartition of a metric across two dimensions in absolute value or as % of total at a given point in time. It is inspired by the stacked bar chart IBCS template.
PLOT DETAIL
The plot is run twice,...
...once for each period.
Categories are sorted by decreasing total metric value with "other rank > x" on the bottom of the plot.
ONE DIMENSION BAR PLOT
If only one dimension is selected, the app with return a simple (not stacked) bar plot.
SMALL MULTIPLES PLOT
To plot the items as small multiples, set the Plot Small multiples widget to True.
and hit the Submit button. The items of the first selected dimension (in this case Product Category) will be plotted against the other selected dimension (in this case Country). If relevant, the average of each sub plot is shown.
By default the subplots will show the top items calculated at the global level, and therefore the items will be identical for each sub plot. You can change this with this widget
Now each plot will show the top items of each specific sub plot.
If the two dimensions are hierarchical (such as country and region in the example below) the items shows in each sub graph will be different.
SAVING THE PLOT
To save the plot as a PNG file, hover the top right side on the chart. A menu will appear. Click on the camera icon.
OTHER OPTIONS
Open the expander under the 📊 Plot type drop down menu by clicking on the ➕ sign.
Additional options are available for selection.
INTEGRATED LEGEND LABELS
The plot does not use external color legends. IBCS recommends that this information be displayed within the chart and that external legends be avoided.
You can choose whether to plot legend labels integrated in the bars and/or at top of the bars.
Bar value (and legend) labels that would not fit in the chart are dropped or shortened.
Legend labels shown on the top are not shortened and always displayed even if they overlap. Blanks are replaced with line break html tags ("<"+"BR"+">") in longer labels. For instance, in the example below the Office Supplies label is written on two rows.
The labels are editable and movable. You can delete a label, move a label around the chart, or delete a line break tag in a label.
You can choose the dimensions you want to plot on the X and Y axes, and which metric to plot.
By default, the seven top items in terms of total value are plotted on the vertical axis and three on the horizontal axis. The other items are aggregated together and plotted in light grey color.
You can change the number of top items to plot for each axis.
NORMALIZED STACKED PLOT
Values can be plotted in absolute value, as a % of total dataset, as a % of total dataset after filters, or as a % of the result row. The last two options only make sense if you plot a result row.
ADD COMPANY NAME TO PLOT
You can add the company name to the plot title, as preconized by the IBCS standard.
The company name will appear in the title.
HIGHLIGHTING
You can highlight a vertical category item.
Select the item you want to highlight in the choose items to highlight widget.
Please note that the highlighting function not work if you plot small multiples.
NEGATIVE VALUES
Negative values - for instance negative margins - will be plotted correctly. However you might need to adjust the label positions by hand.
In case of % stacked bar charts, negative values will also be correctly plotted, but it might be necessary to adjust the position of the labels.
EDIT AND MOVE LABELS
You can edit and move around plot titles and labels. In this chart..
...you can write the legend labels on two rows (insert the HTML "br" tag written in capital letters, "BR") and adjust their position.
ANNOTATE CHARTS
It is possible to annotate charts with lines, rectangles and circles. It is possible to modify the shapes and move them around, and delete them.
Hover and click on the "draw line", "draw circle" and "draw rectangle" icons on the menu bar on the upper right of the chart.
Draw and edit your shapes.
ADD PLOT MESSAGE
It is possible to add messages to the chart, in the style suggested by the IBCS standard.
Add your message to the text box, one chart at a time.
Once you have finished writing the message for a chart, click on the 🚀 Submit button.
Your message will appear above the chart title
Now write another message on the text box of a different chart.
Click submit. Your second message appears above the second chart.
The downloaded image of the chart contains the message. You can also annotate the chart with shapes.
CHART TITLE
By default, the chart title is set on three lines, the first line contains the reporting unit ("who"), the second line the business metric ("what") and the third line the time period ("when").
You can adjust the position of the title, the message text and the grey line by moving them around with the mouse.
CHOICE OF COLOR PALETTE
You can choose one of the available color palettes. Six are inspired by Mekko Graphics, the other are default Tableau and PowerBi palettes, and a palette inspired from the IBCS examples.
GREYSCALE PALETTE
Avoids decorative use of colors. Good for a limited number of items. Similar pallets are available in other colors (greens, blues, reds,...)
TABLEAU PALETTE
This elegant palette is both beautiful and functional.
THINK-CELL PALETTE
If you need to integrate 'Mparanza charts in a document prepared with Think-cell.
CIRQUE PALETTE
This bright palette contains clusters with distinct color separations.
MODERN PALETTE
This fresh palette contains modern tones and stunning highlight colors.
BLUE & GREEN PALETTE
This contiguous palette creates a bi-chromatic chart in cool subdued hues.
KHAKI & DENIM PALETTE
This subdued palette great for complex charts.
POLO PALETTE
This subdued palette is good for charts requiring contrast between segments.
HEATING UP PALETTE
This bright palette is great for complex charts.
POWERBI PALETTE
A lively, colorful palette.
IBCS PALETTE
This functional palette minimizes the risk of confusion between colors .
TRY IT OUT!
In the next three minutes, you will build a professional bar chart from scratch.
There is an interesting article on Medium titled "Tutorial on Building a Professional Bar Graph in Plotly Python" that shows how to build a very nice plot using Kaggle data.
Below the very cool plot complete with plot message. We want to do something similar, from zero, in under three minutes.
GET DATA
Go to the article, click on the link to the data, download the data as a csv file.
OPEN DATASET AND RENAME COLUMNS
Right-click on the file and open it in Excel. Rename the "created_at" column as "Date". Close and save the file. If you have time, you can rename the "category_name_1" column into "category"
LOAD DATASET ON 'MPARANZA.COM
Open 'Mparanza.com, and click on "Open Beta".
Open the upload widget and load the file.
Wait until the little munchkin has finished running.
Scroll down to the submit button.
RUN CHARTING
Hit "Submit".
This chart will appear below the submit button.
Nice, but there is no plot message ☹️.
ADD PLOT MESSAGE
Make up a message - max 100 characters. For example, "Growth driven by doubling of Mobiles sales, Appliance & Entertainment also strong" for the "by category" chart.
Type your message in the text box that above the chart. Click again on submit when done.
Click on submit.
Now the chart has a message above the title 😎.
