New Charts in AppSheet applications - in Preview Program

[benhare]

The following feature has been added to the Preview Program. Feel free to test the feature and report issues or possible improvements in this thread.

App Creators can now make use of our new chart editor and the new and improved charts it can create. There are still features to be added before general availability, and the new charts should not be used in production apps until general availability as they may be unstable in the future.

We’ve been trying to create a charting experience that allows creators to create charts with more flexibility than they currently have, and which tries to be smart about picking the type of chart that will best represent your data.

How do I start creating new charts?

If you have enabled the preview program for your app (make sure to save after turning on the preview program), you should be able to see a toggle to switch between the current experience and the new experience the next time you are viewing a chart under UX → Views. Just press “Try it out” and you should be able to play with it.

How do I use the new editor?

The new editor will show you the columns in your app, and you can drag them into appropriate Configuration slots. We will then try to guess the type of chart that is appropriate for that type of data - however you can change this should you wish.

We’re also very interested in feedback as to the usability and discoverability of the features of this editor, so do please explore and let us know what you found.

What chart types are we supporting?

We are currently supporting bar, line, area, scatter, pie, and doughnut charts.

But what about my existing charts?

You can feel free to play around with this chart editor even on top of an existing chart, as they are co-existing alongside one another. You can switch back to your old chart by just pressing the “Use legacy charts” button.

What features are upcoming?

We’ll be rolling out new improvements to this periodically (so stay tuned to the Release Notes to get an exact accounting of what’s coming!), some notable features that will be coming soon are

• The ability to pick from several different themes for the colours in the chart
• The ability to show and hide the title and the ability to turn off clicking through the data on the chart
• The ability to customize what is in the tooltips that users see when over a chart

And more!

[PocketDragon]

I’m glad to know this update is still somewhere on the horizon! The charts have remained the most responsive and agile aspects of the app and I find them more and more useful for filtering and navigating. I’ve had another thought for when you are able to get back to the newer charts.

I noticed that when returning to a chart view, the filters all get cleared. Having filters stick might be nice, but this is not a problem. However when a mobile user selects or deselects categories from the legend, it’s hard to click through multiple “tabs” because the arrows are small. So toggling categories and resetting filters becomes a chore. Would it be possible to make this legend a scrolling carousel that a user can swipe through instead of the arrows?

[benhare]

Getting the filters to stick/work like other in app filters is definitely something we want to make work before we ever launch this. That’s an interesting point about the legend - I’ll have to look into what eCharts supports (that’s the kind of charts that we make using this feature). Thanks for the feedback!

[Luke_H]

Hi, Where are we at on the click through bug? Are we seeing a fix for it on the roadmap. It is a vital feature for us. Organizing the data, but not being able to access it with click through prevents me from utilizing it. Otherwise, it has been nice to see these changes in charts

[benhare]

Hello Luke, so no fixes for new charts on are the roadmap - as the feature is in Preview it shouldn’t be being used for Production apps where vital functionality is needed, or if the functionality stopped working it would be a business critical issue. When we have built them to the point where we’re comfortable with those two things it will be taken out of the Preview Program.

That being said the click through issue is the first thing I’ll work on whenever I can get back to charts, but even after that there are several bugs/features that need to be implemented.

[Fabian_Weller]

@benhare I had this setup working. But now the chart is empty.

If I open the DATA, all rows show up.
The [Start] column is a visible DateType column.

[benhare]

Interesting, I hadn’t noticed anything breaking, let me try and see if I can reproduce it. Is that just a standard Datetime field on the Major axis or a Date field?

[Fabian_Weller]

@benhare This is a standard DateTime field

I enabled also the Show? but this made no difference.

If you want to have a look:
appName=KMQualityGate-622224
View = Seite_Chart

Update: I was just looking again on the Chart and now it is working again.

But still another Chart is blank: Artikel_Chart 2
Here I see, that all “Aggregate by” are working beside:

• Year
• Quarter
• Month
• Week
• Day
  

If I choose one of them, the Chart will be blank as in the image in my first post.

[Fabian_Weller]

@benhare have you found the reason why the chart is blank? When I change the “Aggregate by” from “Month” to “Month Name” it is working again.
Edit: I think I found the reason: If I use a security filter for my data
YEAR([DateTime])=YEAR(TODAY())
then the Chart is working also with “Aggregate by” Month. But as soon as there are DateTime from last year, the chart will be blank.
Info: I only have DateTime values since 01 December 2020. So there are no duplicate months.

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Also it seems that Yes/No display values are not respected.

[benhare]

Hello Fabian, I hadn’t had a chance to look into it yet no. That’s really helpful debugging, thank you. Sounds like it doesn’t like it when there are multiple years then. I don’t have time right now to fix that, but I will add it to our list of things we need to do when we do launch this feature.

[hien_nguyen]

Hi @benhare do you handle this project or left? I see this feature very simple and lot of bugs but never fixed since the last preview time? 

[Kirk_Masden]

Hi! This is a long and important thread but, by contrast, I’m surprised by how meager the sample / template illustrations of how to actually use charts in AppSheet are:

https://www.appsheet.com/templates?q=chart&hPP=100&idx=help&p=0&is_v=1

Only three at this point and not much variety within them.

I hope more samples / templates can be provided soon. I’d particularly like to see an illustration of how to use the REF type Chart View mentioned here:

Adding a chart on detail view Questions

@_Excelrati To the table where Customer information is coming from, add a Virtual Column with a SELECT(…) expression to populate which data you want from any desired table which will create a LIST type virtual column. Then create a REF type Chart View associated with this Virtual Column. Edit Customer Detail view and arrange the column order including this virtual column. Your chart(s) will be shown as an inline view in Customer Detail View.

In regard to the scatterplots mentioned here by @tsuji_koichi , I’m using QuickChart. Here’s a little post about my implementation:

Using QuickChart in your apps Tips & Tricks 💡

As I wrote yesterday, I love QuickChart and have been playing with it again recently. I’d like to report on what I’ve done, why I find it to be so useful, and a problem I’m having. First please look at the following graphic that my vocabulary (flashcard) app now makes: [chart-2a] The app works best when the user does one “session” of study per day, so you can think of the session number at the bottom of the graph as day numbers. (Obviously, I’ve been working on and using the app a long ti…

It’s not a typical scatterplot but it does what I want it to do. If this sort of thing (that is, making little scatterplot graphs using data from just one row and displaying it in a detail view) could be done natively within AppSheet that would be great.

[WillowMobileSys]

Kirk_Masden:

Only three at this point and not much variety within them.

I hope more samples / templates can be provided soon.

I have only played only a little with the Playground Chart feature and only used the original charting for a few simple charts. It is my understanding that AppSheet will “suggest” chart types based on the data? I think all of the original chart types are available in the new feature. You only see the ones that can be applied to the data structure selected in the chart view. I have not tried this out to confirm but is what I have understood from reading other posts.

[benhare]

@tsuji_koichi I really do appreciate the feedback/bug finding you’ve done on the feature, I do record anything you mention for when we get back to this (which we certainly will - this is a much requested feature - I just don’t know and can’t tell you when that will be). But again I do read and record all of these in the project so it is far from wasted effort on your part. Thank you for putting it in.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Hi @benhare
Thank you for your comment. I just want to exaggerate how much we are waiting for this new feature in play ! I understand you have other priorities to work on first, but hope you will be able ot be back on this seat soon.

[Grant_Stead]

tsuji_koichi:

I just want to exaggerate how much we are waiting for this new feature in play !

Echo.
Echo.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Additional observations.

On the mobile, the range selector can not select the right hand side controller, as it sits behind the overlay positioned action button. Better to avoid “overrapping” those elements.

[Aylas]

gracias por la innovación, ¿hay alguna manera de que los valores “0” o los valores vacíos no se grafican?

[MickySlife]

I am eagerly awaiting the new chart colors options.  I often use LINE charts and there are no color options available for those. This would be very helpful.  I like the idea of having Color themes as mentioned in the launch post.  Hopefully there can be defaults set so that I don't need to set them every time I add a chart. 

I am noticing a bug related to the KPI Option "Show Last Value".  This value is NOT visible when the Brand theme is set to DARK.  It is visible only when Brand is set to use a Light theme.  

[Boomerscompany]

I managed to give them color like this but it would be cool to have a color palette it would make it easier

[Chinh99]

How can I show value, percentage and name on a chart like your pie chart

[LourdesCarrera]

So, why I can't see that feature?

[Boomerscompany]

❤️

[Marc_Dillon]

Hi @benhare ,

I've been building a lot of charts lately, both in Appsheet as well as Google Data Studio. I have one question and one suggestion for you, in regards to this new charting features.

1. Why did you choose the terms "minor" and "major"? Why not "dimension" and "metric" like in GDS?

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2. The new aggregation functions for "major" fields are great. One more thing that I think makes a huge difference here is to have a (in GDS language) "breakdown dimension".

I illustrate what I mean, assume a basic table like this:

And I want a line chart showing SUM of number on Y, and month on X, with a separate line for each year. Like this:

This is easily accomplished in GDS, from the base data set, just by using GDS's "breakdown dimension" option (the year being the breakdown dimension).

However the only way to accomplish this in Appsheet, is to make a brand new "aggregation" Table, of this form:

You can get most of the way there, with the new charting options, but you can't split the lines unless they are different columns. I'd like to avoid creating these aggregation tables if I can.

Obviously this is just one example, but from my recent experiences, adding in a "breakdown dimension" option should open up a lot more potential in Appsheet's charting.

Thanks for considering.

[Ferret]

I believe this is a new bug specific only to the new charts:

TL;DR: Views using new charts can only have the Menu position setting. Affects existing views.

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/New-chart-REF-ERROR/m-p/409959

[Steve]

Escalated.

[Steve]

This feature is no longer being developed and bugs are not being fixed.

[Marc_Dillon]

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@Steve wrote:

This feature is no longer being developed and bugs are not being fixed.

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😮

😦

☹️

[Arthur_Rallu]

Hello everyone,

Let me provide some clarification here.

The new charts are still in Preview. They are not being scrapped. When and if that happens, someone from the product team will let you know and the feature would be removed from the Editor completely. However, it's true that we haven't prioritized getting this feature out of Preview and into General Availability. Your next question would surely be "When will this become generally available then?". Honestly, I don't have an answer today. I'll try to get clarity on that and get back to you. 

As a reminder, we ask that you don't rely on Preview features for your apps in production. 

Thank you

[hien_nguyen]

Hi @Arthur_Rallu , 

Do you continue following this project or closed it? As I see the new chart is very simple and not be investigation more since 2021. Please take care this feature. Thanks

[Lidio_Pereira]

I love my charts

[Rene_Casana]

I tried it, it's excellent what you're doing with the charts, I'd like to suggest you something big:

Bring the google sheets chart configuration, it could be way better, with this you'll have a standarized way to configure them in both appsheet and google sheets and the user won't need to learn a new interface.

[okutani_hayato]

Hello!
The new chart is interesting.
If possible, please make the stacked bar graph a new function.

Well, I came across one bug-like phenomenon.

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/video/10002201?key=3c9762c31c1d4b8ebd578c3424921dae

Clicking on any chart will take you to the same record.
Is there a place to set the destination?

Thank you.

[Fabian_Weller]

This is a known bug that @benhare is aware of.

[Karimmc2]

Is there an estimated date on when this preview feature will become a general release?

[gregdiana1]

I thought I would test this out as I am ok with charts etc.

It is simple to use but why not call Major as Y-Axis and call a spade a spade and Minor X-axes?

The new zoom is great but you have changed the chart and we can no longer see maximum.

Also, I see color but no dropdown so all line charts ater auto allocated which is plain dumb.

Combining the trendlines is quite cute but again no colour option. Maybe inlcude a max trendline to show max and max value value

Also when using area charts it defaults to stack charts and one needs stack charts option. Also Minor axis placement will have to be ordered to prevent larger areas from overwriting smaller areas.

Still appears to be work in progress

[Steve]

An

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@gregdiana1 wrote:

Still appears to be work in progress

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And has been for years. Best to assume it won't happen.

[krum56]

I would just like to thank everyone to keep motivating the developers and helping them by pointing out the bugs within the new charts. I have been using Appsheet for just close to a year now. I really appreciate few of the new features that got launched including the new charts which is very promising. 
Thank you @benhare for the great work  and @Koichi_Tsuji  for helping out the community with finding the bugs. 

[Ceke]

Is it possible to have a tablechart?. I mean a basic table report instead of doing it on the sheets and then struggling to filter the rows ecc. 

[Koichi_Tsuji]

I'm on the feeling that this new chart project is closed completely (no more development for GA) and leave it to Looker studio + Embeded view (Iframe) would be introduced soon instead?

Probably im not right.

@takuya_miyai 

@Arthur_Rallu 

[Fabian_Weller]

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@Fabian_Weller wrote:

@benhare have you found the reason why the chart is blank? When I change the “Aggregate by” from “Month” to “Month Name” it is working again.
Edit: I think I found the reason: If I use a security filter for my data
YEAR([DateTime])=YEAR(TODAY())
then the Chart is working also with “Aggregate by” Month. But as soon as there are DateTime from last year, the chart will be blank.
Info: I only have DateTime values since 01 December 2020. So there are no duplicate months.

---

This problem seems to be solved. Now it can display the chart with multiple years.
@ben