Using stacked charts to display results

A stacked chart breaks down each bar or column in a chart into subsections of the total. For example, if you've created a column chart displaying tickets by the year in which they were solved, you could further break each column down by the ticket satisfaction rating. This can be particularly useful when you want to see a visual representation of which items are having the most influence on a category total.

The following chart types support using stacked values:

• Area
• Bar
• Column

In this article, you'll work through an example of creating a column chart showing ticket satisfaction ratings on a year-by-year basis. You'll then use stacking to make the chart easier to read. Finally, you'll be introduced to some of the options you can use to refine stacked charts.

This article contains the following topics:

• Creating a stacked chart
• Advanced settings for stacked charts

Creating a stacked chart

In this example, you'll create a column chart that shows ticket satisfaction ratings on a year-by-year basis. You'll then use stacking to enhance the readability of the chart.

To create the stacked chart

1. In Explore, click the query ( ) icon.
2. In the Queries library, click New query.
3. On the Choose a dataset page, choose the dataset containing the ticket data you'll need to build the query; in this case Support: Tickets, then click New query.
4. Next, in Query builder, add your metrics, the things you want to measure; in this case, the number of tickets created. In the Metrics panel, click Add.
5. From the list of metrics, choose Tickets > Tickets, then click Apply.

   Explore displays the number of tickets in your Zendesk Support instance.

6. In the Columns panel, click Add.
7. From the list of attributes, choose Time - Ticket solved > Ticket solved - Year, then click Apply.

   Explore displays the number of tickets broken down by the year in which they were solved. If the chart is not displayed as a column chart, you can change this from the visualization type menu ( ).

8. In the Rows panel, click Add.
9. From the list of attributes, choose Customer satisfaction > Ticket satisfaction rating, then click Apply.

   Explore displays the number of tickets broken down by year. Using the row selector, you can select which ticket satisfaction rating to display though often, you'll click the row selector heading to select all rows. Each rating type displays as a separate column on the chart. Next, group these rating columns together to create a cleaner looking stacked column chart.

   

10. From the Chart configuration menu ( ) , click Chart.
11. From the Chart panel, select Stacked. Make sure the other options on this panel are not selected.
    Note: To find out more about the other stacking options, see Advanced settings for stacked charts in this article.
12. In the row selector, select the ratings you want to appear in the stacked chart or click the heading, in this case Ticket satisfaction rating, to select all the ratings.

    

Explore redisplays the column chart with the satisfaction ratings stacked together for the selected rows.

Tip: If you want the query to open with all rows selected, in the Chart configuration menu ( ) click Row selector, then from the Selected position drop-down list, choose Select all.

Advanced settings for stacked charts

Use the chart panel in the Chart configuration menu ( ) to access stacking options for area, column, and bar charts.

This menu contains the following options for stacking your chart:

• Stacked: Turns stacking on or off. Hover over one of the bars in the stack to see the total number for that bar.
• Stacked: Aggregate values: Starting from the first bar, the values of subsequent bars are cumulatively added together. The final bar displays the total of all bars.
• Stacked: Percentage: Displays the percentage of the total for each stacked bar. In addition to selecting this option, you must configure the Show value option on the Displayed values panel of the Chart configuration menu to Show.
• Stacked: Show total values: Displays the total from each bar at the top of the stack.