Pick the right chart

In the metric builder, What do you want to see? decides the whole shape of a tile, and the Chart control below it decides how that shape is drawn. This page is the short version of both, so you can choose once instead of trying all four. About 3 minutes.

The four things a metric can be

Four buttons, and the description under them changes with your choice.

Button	What it says underneath	What you get	It needs
Number	One total, count or average	A stat card: a label, one big number, a percentage change and a small trend line	Nothing extra
Bars	Compare categories	One bar, or one slice, per category	Something to break down by
Line	A trend over time	A line across time buckets	A bucket size — Day, Week or Month
Compare	Plot two values	A scatter plot, one dot per record	Two different numeric fields

Compare is always offered but is not always usable. With fewer than two numeric fields you get the warning Add 2 or more numeric fields to plot a comparison., the X and vs Y dropdowns come up empty, and Add to board stays off until both axes are set and they are not the same field.

Drawing a Bars metric

With Break down set and the split left on No split, the Chart control offers three ways to draw the same numbers.

Same metric, three drawings. Nothing about the numbers changes.

Option	What it looks like	Pick it when
Bars	Vertical bars, one colour per category, category names along the bottom	The default. Few categories, short names
Horizontal	The same bars rotated — names down the left, bars running right	The category names are long. Sideways gives them room to be read
Donut	One slice per category around a hollow middle, with a legend under it	You care about each category’s share of the whole, not its exact size

Set a split and the Chart control disappears. A split always draws grouped vertical bars — one bar per split value inside each category, with a legend. That is the only drawing that can honestly show two dimensions at once, so there is nothing to choose.

Drawing a Line metric

Set the bucket size under Over time first, then choose how the line is filled.

With no split, the Chart control offers two:

Line — a plain line, no dots.
Area — the same line with a fill fading away underneath it. Easier to read at a glance; no more informative.

With a split, it offers two different ones:

Lines — one line per split value, with a legend. Good for comparing the shapes of several series.
Stacked area — the same series filled and stacked into bands, so the top edge is the total.

Stacked area is not always available. Stacking says “these add up”, which is only true of a total that really does add up — Count, Distinct count and Sum. Choose Average, Min or Max and the control switches off with a note saying stacked area needs a total that adds up. Stacking averages would draw a height that means nothing, so it is refused rather than caveated.

Comparing two numbers

Compare plots one dot per record: the X field along the bottom, the vs Y field up the side. Use it to see whether two numbers on your records move together — a quoted value against a closed value, say.

Two dropdowns, two axes. They have to be two different fields.

Number and Compare have no Chart control. There is only one way to draw a single number and only one way to draw a scatter plot.

What changing the chart does and does not do

The shape is remembered with the board. It is saved alongside the tile’s size and position, so Save as default publishes it and a reload does not undo it.
Switching shape never changes the numbers. The drawing is the only thing that changes; the same stored metric is redrawn. If a Donut and a Bars version disagree, you are looking at two different date ranges, not two different answers.
A stat card is decided by the metric, not by the button you pressed. A metric that asks for one number is always drawn as a stat card. That is also why such a tile stops at two rows when you resize it.
Numbers on axes and stat cards are shortened — 1.2K, 4.5M.
Hover any chart for a tooltip. Charts with more than one series, and every Donut, get a legend. The legend names come from your own option names.
There is no zoom and no drilling into a chart. The one exception on the board is the Campaign performance table, whose rows open that campaign.
There is no export or download of a tile or of the board.

If something goes wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
Stacked area is greyed out	Your measure is an Average, Min or Max, which cannot be stacked	The whole Chart control greys out and the tile stays on Lines. Change the measure to a Count or a Sum if you need the bands
The Chart control vanished on a Bars metric	You set a split. A split is always grouped vertical bars	Set Split by back to No split to get the three options back
Add 2 or more numeric fields to plot a comparison.	Compare needs two numeric fields and your workspace has fewer	Add number fields to your database, or pick a different type
Pick two different numeric fields to plot. in the preview	Both axes are the same field, or one is empty	Set X and vs Y to two different fields
The bars add up to more than the headline number	You are summing or averaging a number field broken down by a multi-select field, so one record’s value lands in every option it carries	Nothing to fix — that is attribution, not a miscount. Break down by a single-choice field if you need the bars to sum
Partial — only the top results are shown. Add a filter to narrow it. under a chart	The metric came back with more rows than one run carries, so you are seeing the top ones	Add a condition under Filter, or break down by something with fewer values
A picker shows Unavailable field in amber	The tile points at a field that has been deleted or hidden	Open the tile’s Edit and pick a field that still exists