Reference Lines

Introduction

Reference lines provide visual comparison between data in a chart against a preset value.

It can be a constant value (e.g. 1000) - which you can use to compare monthly sales to a target number and display it as a goal line, or a computed value (e.g. average of sales) - which you can use to compare sales of each product against the average.

Reference Lines are supported in Line, Column, Bar, Area, and Combination Charts.

You can add a Reference Line in the visualization with just a few clicks, and you can create as many lines as you want. Here is a sneak peak of how it will look like:

Displaying one or multiple reference lines

In charts with a Legend, Holistics automatically generates individual reference lines for each legend value, which results in multiple lines. You can choose to display a "global" reference line by using either break down by legend toggle or merge into one line toggle, whichever suits your analytical needs.

Please note that both toggles are available only in AQL-enabled datasets.

Option 1: Turn off the “break down by legend” toggle

• This setting removes the Legend’s influence on the reference line. When the "Break down by legend" toggle is off, the reference line mimics what you would see in a chart without any legend.

• Opt for this when your goal is to display the reference line for overall totals, ignoring the segmentation by the Legend. For example, comparing the performance of each category against the average of the monthly totals.

• Here’s an example for what “break down by legend” toggle can do:

  • Image 1 is a visualization with no Legend at all.

    

  • Image 2 is a visualization with a Legend “Gender”, but the reference line’s toggle “break down by legend” is turned off.

    

  • You’ll see that the purple reference lines in both images have the same value of 494.

Option 2: Turn on the “merge into one line” toggle

• This toggle calculates a single reference line by considering all the data points in the chart.

• It is ideal for presenting a comprehensive reference line that spans across the segmented values. For example, comparing the performance of each category against the average of all categories within each month.

• Here’s an example for the comparison of Option 1 and Option 2:

  • Image 1 is the visualization with a Legend “Gender”, but the reference line’s toggle “break down by legend” is turned off.

    

  • Image 2 is a visualization where we turn on both toggles “break down by legend” and “merge into one line” for the reference line.

    

  • You’ll see that the dark blue reference line in the second image has a value of 259, compared to the purple reference line, which is 494 in the first image. This is because the dark blue reference line is calculated as the average of all the segmented data points in the blue and green columns.