Choosing a graph style

You can display your report graph in a variety of graph styles. The style you choose must be compatible with the data you want to display. For example, consider the data requirements for the following graph styles:

An area graph or a bar graph require only a minimum of one metric and one attribute to be included in the report, to display data properly within that style.
A scatter graph requires at least 2 metrics in the report to display the graph style properly.
A bubble graph requires at least 3 metrics to be a useful graph style to choose.

For complete details on the requirements and recommendations for each graph style available in MicroStrategy, see the Graphing chapter in the Advanced Reporting Help.

Graph style examples

You may want to display your grid report data in a pie graph format, as shown in the image below.

You might then want to see the same data in a Polar graph style, as shown below.

When selecting a graph style to view your data, you must consider two important issues:

The structure and amount of data on your report affect your decision because some graph styles cannot be displayed unless a certain number of attributes or metrics appear on the report grid. These requirements are listed in the Graphing chapter of the Advanced Reporting Help.
The position of report objects on your report grid also determines whether a graph can be generated in a certain graph style. For example, to display slices in a pie chart, you can change the placement of report objects by pivoting data; for details, see Pivoting data. For general information about how the placement of report objects determines which graph styles you can use, see the Graphing chapter of the Advanced Reporting Help.

Changing a graph's style

Perform the following steps to modify the graph style. Use the appropriate procedure below, depending on whether you are working in MicroStrategy Developer or Web.

To change a graph style in Developer

Open a report in either Graph or Grid Graph view.
From the Gallery menu, select a graph style to use with the graph.

If a graph style is grayed out and unavailable, there is insufficient data on your proposed graph to generate the graph in that style. Choose another graph style for the graph. For information about the minimum requirements for each graph style, see the Graphing chapter of the Advanced Reporting Help.

To change a graph style in MicroStrategy Web

Open a report in either Graph or Grid and Graph view.
From the Graph toolbar, select a new graph style to use.

If an error message is displayed that notifies you that there is insufficient data on your proposed graph to generate the graph in the selected style, click Cancel. Choose another graph style for the graph. For information about the minimum requirements for each graph style, see the Graphing chapter of the Advanced Reporting Help.