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Adoptiv

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
Five fields behind one line
Label
Target
Constant
70
Colour
zinc 600
Axis
Stroke style
Target 70
This frame honours
labelconstantcolouraxisstroke style
Draws nothing at all · 13

PIE · DONUT · FUNNEL · TREEMAP · RADIAL_BAR · COMBO · RADAR · SCATTER · BUBBLE · GAUGE · KPI_CARD · TABLE · PIVOT

Adding one is a save and a repaint, not a query · a gauge carries a target of its own on the widget rather than in the presentation blob
The area chart lays every reference line flat. It reads the constant and the stroke style and prints the label, and a vertical choice is simply not passed through, so a line authored on x arrives on y.
0
visuals that will draw one
0
stroke styles on offer
0
fields behind a single line

Product figures from the platform’s own defaults - not customer averages

The mechanism

How it works.

01

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.

02

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.

03

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.

04

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.

Where it sits

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.

  1. 01
    Query

    what is asked, and of what

  2. 02
    Shape

    the measure and the dimension

  3. 03
    Draw

    the visual chosen for that shape

  4. 04
    Arrange

    where it sits on a dashboard

  5. 05
    Filter

    narrowing it after the fact

  6. 06
    Drill

    going from the number to the rows

  7. 07
    Share

    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

More in Reporting & Analytics

12 capabilities

Seven data shapes, twenty-two visuals, shareable without the portal.

Widget Studio

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.

Dashboard Sharing

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.

Dashboards

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.

Cross-Filtering

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.

Drill-Through

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.

Pivot Tables

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.

Filter Trees

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.

Bucketing & Grouping

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.

Theme Sets

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.

Public Links

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.

Embedded Widgets

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.

Call Analytics

Total calls, answered rate, average duration and missed calls, split by direction and outcome, over the call records rather than a sampled export.

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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