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This blog is part two of a multipart series on managing views, dashboards, and charts in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement. Part one discussed creating a personal view. This blog entry is about understanding charts in Dynamics 365. The next part in this series will discuss dashboards. We will then conclude our series with a culmination of how to share views, dashboards, and charts with other users in your organization
What are Charts in Dynamics 365?
Charts and other visualizations in Dynamics 365 are excellent tools for seeing the big picture in your system’s data. Most data in Dynamics 365 is surfaced in views – but views can hide important and subtle details. For example, I can view a list of 250 opportunities. But if I want to easily see what opportunities will be closing this month or next, who my top salespeople are, or how many phone calls per opportunity are being completed, there is no better tool than a nice chart!
Any table can have multiple charts, but only one chart at a time can be displayed beside a grid. Looking at multiple charts at the same time requires a dashboard.
Personal vs. System Charts
- System charts – these charts are owned by the organization and cannot be assigned or shared. These charts can be edited by system administrators or system customizers. Dynamics 365 comes with several out of box charts for the most popular tables – including leads, opportunities, contacts, accounts, and cases.
- Personal Charts – Any user with sufficient security can create their own charts and visualizations. Once created, these personal charts can be shared with others Dynamics 365 users. They can also be added to personal dashboards
Types Of Charts
Charts in Dynamics 365 can be classified as one of two types of charts : Single-series charts and multi-series charts.
- Single-series Charts – Single-series charts are visualizations that display data with a series Y value mapped to a category x value.
The most common types of single-series charts include:
Column Charts – show data in vertical columns.
Bar Charts – show data in horizontal columns.
Area Charts – used to show cumulative totals over time.
Line Charts – show individual points on a graph that are joined by a line. Line Charts might be used when looking at trends over a period of time.
Pie Charts – show data as pieces of pie. A pie graph might be used to show numerical proportions of data.
Funnel Charts – show values as progressively decreasing proportions amounting to 100% in total. A funnel chart is commonly used to show the sales pipeline.
Other types of single-series charts that are not quite as common include bubble charts, radar charts, tag charts, and doughnut charts.
2. Multi-series Charts – Multi-series charts are visualizations that display data with multiple series values mapped to a single category value. You can combine different compatible chart types in a multi-series chart.
There are two types of multi-series charts: a stacked chart and a 100% stacked chart. Both types of charts are comparison charts (particularly helpful when you are comparing two sets of data).
Stacked Chart – vertically displays data with multiple series values mapped to a single category value.
100% Stacked Chart – compares the percentage that each series contributes to a total across categories, Different compatible chart types can be combined (such as bar and line or bar and column).
To learn the steps for creating a personal chart, visit our blog.
If you need any assistance incorporating charts into your Dynamics 365 dashboards, do not hesitate to contact the experts at enCloud9.
