Tips and Tricks with SharePoint and the Chart web part

Add an Annotation

1. Get to the chart's Advanced Settings.
2. At left, in the Select an Element panel, click Annotations.  Above the settings panel, you'll see Annotation Menu.  The dropdown will be empty if you haven't configured an annotation yet.   The settings panel will also be empty, since there is no annotation to configure yet. Look to the right of this dropdown for the little "+" symbol.
3. Click this "+" symbol.  This will create a new generic annotation.  It will appear above left of your chart, "Annotation1".  The Settings panel will also be refresh and now display a number of settings that you can configure.  You'll be working with the Anchor and Position groups of settings.

   Note on positioning: the coordinates here are always relative, from 0 - 100, starting from the top left corner of the chart. In other words, positive Y is down and positive X is to the right.

4. Scroll down to the Position group.  Notice that the X and Y settings are both 0.  These coordinates are associated with the top left corner of the annotation box.  Change Y to be 50, and then click somewhere else.  The change is implemented immediately.  The annotation box has been moved down vertically to the center of the Y axis.
5. Now adjust the X and Y settings as desired.  The next thing you can add is a pointer.  This pointer will start at the annotation box and reach to any point on the graph you want.  To configure pointer settings, you need to scroll back up to the Anchor group.
6. In the AnchorX and AnchorY settings, enter the X and Y values of where you would like the pointer to stop.  It will start at the annotation box and end where you want it to end.  The start of the pointer will automatically adjust depending on whether the end value is to the right, left, above or below the annotation box.  Adjust the settings as desired.  The next value to adjust is the Text value, which is the actual text you want displayed in the annotation box.
7. Scroll down to the Appearance group, and then a bit more until you see the Text setting.  It will appear just above the MapArea group.  By default, this setting will be "Annotation1" if this is the first annotation you are adding.  If your message is long, it will stretch out the annotation box.  You can adjust the width and height of this box, and text will automatically wrap as necessary.
8. Scroll down to the Position group.  Edit the Height and Width settings as desired.  Lastly, you can adjust the way in which the text is presented in the annotation box - left,right justified, centered, etc.  By default, it will be centered.  Let's change this to left-justified.
9. Scroll to the top, look for the Alignment settings, and change it to TopLeft.  At present, the annotation box has the pointer coming from the bottom middle.  I would like it to come from the right side.  To do this, I need to move the annotation to the left enough, and that requires further adjustment of the X and Y settings in the Position group.
10. When you are done, click the Finish button at the bottom of the page.  At any time, to return to this annotation, get to the Advanced Settings dialog, select Annotations from the Select and Element panel, and then select the appropriate annotation from the dropdown.

References

• Setting a Custom Color Palette on Chart Web Parts
• Chart.PaletteCustomColors Property

Using the Chart Web Part: Tips and Procedures

Introduction

This posting consolidates notes on using the Chart web part.  It includes notes for both 2010 and 2013.  In most cases, notes written for 2010 can be applied to 2013.

Deploying the Chart Web Part

The Chart web part is immediately available in the Enterprise version of SharePoint 2010 [1,3].  However, it is also available in the Standard version if you know how.  To make it available in SharePoint 2010 Standard, you will need to specifically add the web part to the site collection from the Web Parts list [2].  To do this, go:

[yoursharepointsite]/_layouts/NewDwp.aspx

This takes you to the undocumented page, Web Part Gallery.  Scroll down until you find the Chart web part.  Select its checkbox, and then click the Populate Gallery button at the top of the page.  Now go back to your draft page, and again work through the process of adding a web part to a page [3].

Add Axis Interlacing (Bands)

Configure an Alternating Bands (Banded) Background

1) Go to Advanced Properties
2) Select Chart Areas
3) From the Axis menu, select the desired axis
4) Scroll down until you find the Appearance group of settings, and then set Interlaced = TRUE
5) Also in this group, set the InterlaceColor = [desired color]

Angle Axis Labels

1) Go to Advanced Properties
2) Select Chart Areas
3) From the Axis menu, select the desired axis
4) Scroll down until you find the Labels group, and then set Angle = [desired angle]

Hide the Data & Appearance Advanced Properties toolbar

1) Open the page in SharePoint Designer
2) Locate the Chart View Web part in Code View
3) Search for ShowToolbar, and set it to False.

Cannot remove second chart area

1. Re-assign any series currently assigned to the second chart area back to the first.
2. Remove any titles assigned to the second chart area.
3. For both chart areas, for the Alignment settings, set the AlignWithChartArea back to NotSet.
4. Not ensuring these settings changes will cause any attempt to delete the second chart area to fail.

References

1. SharePoint Config Blog: SharePoint 2010 Web Parts by License Type
2. Al's Tech Tips: SharePoint 2010 Shortcuts and General Aids
3. SharePoint 2010’s Chart Web Part
4. Microsoft Office: Introduction to the Chart Web Part
5. SharePoint Solutions: The New Chart Web Part in SharePoint 2010