Reference Lines
The number that was promised, drawn across the same axes as the number that arrived. It is a constant you type in, not a series the chart works out, which is why it stays still while the bars move.
A constant you typed, on somebody else's frame
7 frames draw one- Label
- Target
- Constant
- 70
- Colour
- zinc 600
Ignored here. An area chart lays the line flat.
Ignored here. This family renders solid.
PIE · DONUT · FUNNEL · TREEMAP · RADIAL_BAR · COMBO · RADAR · SCATTER · BUBBLE · GAUGE · KPI_CARD · TABLE · PIVOT
Product figures from the platform’s own defaults - not customer averages
How it works.
Five fields and no arithmetic
A label printed beside it, a constant, which axis it crosses, a stroke colour and a stroke style. Nothing in it reads the data, so a line marking an average is an average somebody worked out and typed. Move the window and the line does not follow.
It rides with the picture, not the query
Lines live in the widget's presentation blob alongside legend and axis settings. Adding one is a save and a repaint. It survives a change of renderer as long as the new renderer is one that draws them.
Where it appears
Categorical column and bar, line, area and stacked area, and the clustered and stacked bar family built from several measures. Those are cartesian frames with an axis a constant can sit on.
Which axis it crosses is one of the five fields
A line lies flat across a value axis or stands upright on a category axis, from the same five fields either way. So marking a target and marking the day a price changed are one object used twice rather than two things to learn.
One moment in every number.
Every number passes through the same seven. Reference Lines is the lit one, and everything either side of it is a different page in this category.
- 01Query
what is asked, and of what
- 02Shape
the measure and the dimension
- 03Draw
the visual chosen for that shape
- 04Arrange
where it sits on a dashboard
- 05Filter
narrowing it after the fact
- 06Drill
going from the number to the rows
- 07Share
who else gets to see it
The specifics.
8 facts- Fields
- Label, constant, axis, colour, stroke style
- Styles
- Solid, dashed, dotted
- Draws on
- Line, area and stacked area, plus every clustered or stacked column and bar frame
- Draws nothing on
- Arc and tile visuals: the pie, the donut, the funnel band, the treemap, the radial arc. Nor combo, radar, scatter, bubble, gauge, single-figure cards, tables or grids
- Vertical lines
- Honoured on every frame it draws on, so a date marker stands where a target lies flat
- Ordering
- Drawn over the marks, so a bar never hides the target it fell short of
- Gauges
- Carry a target of their own instead, set on the widget rather than in the presentation blob
- Not the same as
- Conditional Formatting, which changes the mark's colour instead of adding a mark
What this is assembled from.
A number on a dashboard was built somewhere before it was drawn. These are the parts it is made of.
More in Reporting & Analytics
12 capabilitiesSeven data shapes, twenty-two visuals, shareable without the portal.
A widget declares a data shape; the visual is a separate choice. Swap between the visuals valid for that shape and the query does not run again.
Hand a board to a team or a CRM role, at read or at edit, by the person who built it. Roles outlive people, which is why a share points at one, not a mailbox.
Build as many as the floor needs, arrange them on a grid, and give each team the one that answers their question rather than everybody's question.
Click a bar and the rest of the dashboard follows it, so the next question is asked by pointing at the answer instead of rebuilding the filter.
Wire a chart's clicks to a second dashboard. The value travels on the URL and is read by the board that was named before it paints for the first time.
Cross one dimension against another with row, column and grand totals - the shape a finance team asks for when a chart will not settle the argument.
Seventeen operators in a nested and-or tree, so the report that needs two exceptions and a date range stays one widget instead of becoming three.
Group by day through year, by equal-width bands, or by breakpoints you set, each band carrying a sort key so the axis reads in bucket order.
Six palettes including a print set, pinned per widget, each carrying eight series colours plus the axis, grid, card and tooltip colours drawn around them.
Thirty-two bytes of entropy, an expiry you choose, revocation on the spot, and only the hash kept at rest, on a board that draws its figures for a reader.
Name a slot at the call site and one authored widget answers it everywhere inside the product, computed against the records of whoever is signed in.
Total calls, answered rate, average duration and missed calls, split by direction and outcome, over the call records rather than a sampled export.
The rest of the platform.
Five more categories, all on the same record and the same bill. Each card names three of its capabilities, so you can tell from here whether it is worth opening.
Reporting & Analytics
See reference lines on your own floor.
Thirty minutes, your numbers and your data. We will set reference lines up live and you can decide from the thing itself rather than from this page.
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