Today we announced the launch of Smartsheet Labs – a place to try out new, experimental features built with the Smartsheet API. One of these new Labs app is Smartsheet Charts, an easy way to chart or graph your Smartsheet data.
Many of you have requested this capability so that you can do things like:
- Illustrate sales trends
- Provide visualizations of your project status
- Add Smartsheet data more effectively into your presentations
- Create dashboards with visualizations of your KPIs
Using Charts
To introduce you to the basics of using this new app, we’ll show you how to create a chart to visualize your Sales Rep’s performance for the year based off data in a Sales Activity Tracking sheet (grab the template if you want to step through this with us).
Start at Smartsheet Labs and click “Login with Smartsheet.”
The first time you login, you’ll need to give Smartsheet Labs access to your account. Follow the prompts and allow Smartsheet Labs access to your Smartsheet data (you can always change this later in your Smartsheet Personal Settings).
Once you’re logged in to Smartsheet Labs, click the link for Smartsheet Charts in the top menu. Then click the large green plus icon to create your chart in three steps:
- Step 1: Select the sheet you want to chart.
Use the search bar to find the sheet you’re looking for. By default, the new chart will inherit the name of the source sheet, but you can edit it if you’d like.
- Step 2: Choose the rows and columns from your sheet to be charted.
Remove or add columns to customize your chart. If you remove a column by accident, add it back in by clicking “Select Columns.”
Adding and removing rows is just as easy:
You can swap the axes of your chart here, too, just click “Switch Rows and Columns.” When you have selected the columns and rows you need for your chart, click “Next.”
- Step 3: Determine the right chart type for your data.
Now, choose the type of chart that best fits your data. You can choose from Line, Column, Bar, Pie and other various types.
Not all data sets will work with every chart type – you’ll know your selected data won’t work with a certain chart type if a red error message appears.
Use the “Advanced” link to customize the colors, scale, axis labels, etc. on your chart.
Once you click “Ok” to save your chart, you’re all set! You’ll see your new chart in thumbnail format on your main Charts page.
More about Charts:
- Calculating your data Need to do some simple calculations on your data? Use the radio button at the top of Step 2 to use one of three available aggregation functions: COUNT, AVG or SUM.
- Chart reports You can use Charts to visualize information from your reports, too. Please note that currently only the first 100 rows will appear in your chart.
- Share your Chart You have a couple different options to share your chart with others. If you want to email a snapshot, click the expand button on your chart, resize the window to get the size you want, and then click the download button to save it as a PNG image.
You can also share your chart via a link, similar to sharing Google photos or Google docs. Click the Share button to turn sharing on for your chart, then distribute the link as you see fit. Anyone with the link will be able to see your chart. When you turn off sharing, the link is gone for good and a brand new one will be created if you enable it again.
- Copy your Chart If you want to use an existing chart as your starting point, you can duplicate it with the Copy button.
Smartsheet Charts is one of two new apps in Smartsheet Labs – Smartsheet Maps is also live today. We’re just getting started and can’t wait to come up with more apps like these to help boost your productivity and extend the value of Smartsheet.
Original Article by Kyan Skeem
