Cart

How to Create a Status Chart

Table of Contents

What is a Status Chart

To visualize the on/off status of several engines in time, you have four variables:

  1. the engine names, to use as Y axis labels.
  2. a common time series on the X axis.
  3. the actual measure as (x, y) points on the plot.
  4. and the on/off data labels to associate with each state.

Status Machine Chart

Achieve this by adding the status labels as Category to a typica Range Bar Chart.

Did You KnowSeveral people – including myself – looked for the same kind of chart on the net, and the solutions have been either absent, or too complex (like using a Gantt chart), or simply puzzling.

I called it Status Chart from the initial example presented before. But this type of chart may be used as well in other kinds of scenarios, as the one below. Which is indeed one of project management. And where the Gantt charts may be used as a solution too.

Remember that this so-called Status Machine chart type is simply a Range Bar Chart with a Category.

Steps to Create a Status 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. Set your start dates as Bar Charts – Bar Start, and your end dates as Bar.
  3. Add a Label column for the Y axis labels.
  4. Set as Category the column with the status labels, and show categories as labels.
  5. Click on Group same text values together, to concatenate and overlap the intervals.
  6. Switch rows with columns to show either horizontal bars or vertical columns.

Status Chart Demo Query

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

Status Chart

Customize your Status Chart

  1. Switch rows with columns, to display vertical columns.
  2. Change the drawing style.
  3. Hide the plot lines.
  4. Show thin lollipop bars.
  5. Hide the data labels.
  6. Show markers.

Custom Status Chart

Conclusion

  • Creating Status Charts in Data Xtractor or Visual Xtractor is fast and intuitive enough: you add a Category column – with your “status” labels – to a typical Range Bar Chart.
  • Group same text values together.
  • Project management scenarios may use Gantt charts with a similar effect.