How to Create a Progress Bar Chart

What is a Progress Bar Chart

Progress Bars look like nested or overlapping vertical columns or horizontal bars. However, first bar is always normalized and displayed at 100% of the full width or height, on the background. Next bar or bars show how much their size is compared to the first bar.

Catching-up progress bars will never go beyond the background bar’s length and show as zero if negative. Multiple progress bars appear as nested or overlapping in 2D: a bar in the back has always at least one portion visible. 3D progress bars appear as Manhattan Bars, but inner bars are always truncated to the size of the background reference bar.

Steps to Create a Progress Bar Chart

Start Visual Xtractor or Data Xtractor. Connect to a database. Create or design a SQL query. Run the query and check the results.

1. Display and enable the Chart query builder.
2. Select a numeric column for the background as Progress Charts – Progress Bar.
3. Select other catching-up numeric column(s) as Progress Charts – Progress Bar.
4. Select an optional column as Label.

Progress Bar Chart Demo Query

Look for the ready-to-use Progress Bar Chart generated query under the Queries > Demo Queries > Charts > Bar Charts folder. Click on the “add demo queries” command link, if not there.

Generated demo queries must work for any database, with no restriction. They use constant values generated on-the-fly and your database SQL engine, but do not depend on data from your tables, and never alter your database in any way.

Customize your Progress Bar Chart

1. Change the bar drawing style.
2. Remove gaps between bars, or show them as thin lollipop sticks.
3. Show markers on top.
4. Show vertical columns instead of horizontal bars.
5. Show slanted X axis labels.
6. Hide the plot lines.
7. You may also switch between vertical columns and horizontal bars.
8. A 3D view is also available.
9. You may also show everything with one single-color, or in gray, when the style allows it.

Conclusion

• Creating Progress Bar Charts in Data Xtractor or Visual Xtractor is fast and easy: set one numeric column as Progress Bar for the 100% background, and one or more related numeric columns also as Progress Bar, with an optional Label.
• All builtin powerful features of these chart type are common to most other charts: filtering series through the legend items, interactivity, monochrome or grayscale colors, rich axis and data label selections etc.
• Switch to another builtin chart theme, or customize your own, for any possible color or other styles.