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
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
- In Explore, click the query (
) icon.
- In the Queries library, click New query.
- 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.
- 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.
- From the list of metrics, choose Tickets > Tickets, then click
Apply.
Explore displays the number of tickets in your Zendesk Support instance.
- In the Columns panel, click Add.
- 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 (
).
- In the Rows panel, click Add.
- 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.
- From the Chart configuration menu (
) , click Chart.
- 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.
- 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.

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.
14 Comments
I can't get a stacked chart to work - it just keeps them on separate charts. I'm using #tickets (metric), a custom field (column) and priority (row) - but it will NOT display them on the same chart. Rather it just adds the priority as separate charts to view, meaning I can't stack them.
Any help?
Hi Tara, it sounds like you are doing everything right, so I'm going to send your query to a ticket so someone can work with you to figure things out. Hopefully, someone will be in touch soon.
Hi Tara -
I was having the same issue. Almost went office space trying to figure it out but finally clicked around and found that if you click on the "Ticket priority" field above the list of priorities it selects them all and makes the chart stacked, assuming you have selected the stacked chart of course. I hope that helps you.
Hello Krista,
Thanks for replying to this Community question, love the screenshot btw!
Best regards.
Hello!
I've created a stacked chart, and set percentages to it, all good so far.

Now, how do i add a total at the top? I want to show percentages of tickets in different languages for example, but the total number of tickets at the top for reference.
EDIT:
Ah found it! If anyone else is looking:

Glad you found it Maja!
Following the suggestions below I now am able to create a stacked column. However I would like to only see the chart and have the list on the left side hidden. is that possible as well i have to scroll to see my legend which I don't like. At times my table needs to be added to external powerpoint presentations and this exported view is not pretty because of the left list and the incomplete legend due to the export limitations. In addition I would like all values visible and I am finding that some values that are low value do not appear. How do i ensure that all values appear?
Hi Tina Yates
You can turn off the list on the left (the row selector) from the chart configuration menu:
In the menu above, you should change "Selected position" to "Select all" to ensure you see all values.
You can turn off the legend, or change it's position in this menu:
I hope this helps!
How can I stack rows, but not metrics?
I have two metrics (Achieved SLA and Breached SLA) with Ticket Groups in Rows. When I select Stacked, it stacks everything together. In my opinion, metrics should not be stacked or an option should be provided to stack only rows or metrics or both.
Hey Jiri!

Thanks for reaching out! Can you try moving the Ticket Groups attribute to the columns section to see if this offers any improvement? Here is a screenshot of what this would look like from my test account:
If this isn't quite what you're looking for let me know and I'd be happy to take another look!
Best,
This is bad example. I want to stack columns or rows. Not metrics.
Basically, for each metric there should be a separate column. But the Columns or Rows needs to be stacked.
You have only one ticket group in Column. Try to have Ticket Group A and Ticket Group B. You want to see these stacked.
It does not make sense to stack metrics. Only in some circumstances. Stacking s useful for Columns or rows.
Easily done in EazyBI.
Is there anyway to show the total value above the bars without stacking them?
Hi Darren Taylor! There is definitely a way to do this. You'll want to open the configuration menu and select "Display Values" and click the box at the very top to change it to "Show". It looks like this:

Perfect, thank you Chris Bulin
Please sign in to leave a comment.