Canvas Native Charts

The Chart component allows you to incorporate charts into your Canvas, providing an intuitive and interactive way to visualize data. Charts can dynamically interact with other native Canvas components, such as comboboxes, enhancing the user experience.

Creating and formatting a new Canvas chart

When you drag and drop a chart onto your Canvas, a Chart Creation dialog appears.

In this dialog, you can select a database and cube to serve as the data source for your chart. You can also customize how data is displayed by choosing dimensions and elements and arranging them as needed. Dimensions can be dragged and dropped from the Source area into the Page Headers (POV), Row Titles, or Column Titles sections.

To refine element selection, you can click on a dimension to open the Select Elements dialog. Here, you can search for specific elements, select the elements to display, and apply Alias and Alias Formats as needed.

Formatting a new Canvas chart

In the Chart Creation dialog, you can choose between a Bar, Line, or Waterfall chart as your chart type. You can further customize your native Canvas chart using the Format tab, which is organized into five sections: Chart Selection, Main Settings, Labels, Style, and Axes. Below you can see the detailed information of these sections for each chart type.

  • In the Chart Selection section, you can select the bar chart.

  • The Main Settings section allows you to add a title and description and define the layout (clustered or stacked) and bar direction (horizontal or vertical).

  • The Labels section provides options to toggle data labels on or off. If enabled, you can configure label position, text color, and background color. Additionally, you can enable markers to display either circle or square markers on your chart.

  • The Style section allows you to adjust the visual appearance of the chart, including the font settings, legend position, and bar radius. In this section, you can also customize your chart with a personalized color palette. To do this, first create your custom palette in the Theme section. Once your personalized theme is ready, click the palette drop-down menu in this section, and select your new palette from the list. Watch the video below for a practical example:

  • In the Axes section, you can control gridline visibility by enabling or disabling X and Y axis gridlines. Furthermore, here you can select a gridline style, and color.

Additionally, you can further customize the chart's title, description, and axis titles. Click on the chart's title, description, or an axis title to open a draggable floating toolbar, where you can change the text color, adjust the font size, underline it, modify the alignment (left, center, or right), and adjust the font weight (regular, bold, medium, or italic).

With these customization options, you can create visually appealing and data-driven charts that effectively communicate insights within your Canvas.

  • In the Chart Selection section, you can select the line chart.

  • The Main Settings section allows you to add a title and description and define the line style of the chart (straight or curved).

  • The Labels section provides options to toggle data labels on or off. If enabled, you can configure label position, text color, and background color.

  • The Style section allows you to adjust the visual appearance of the chart, including the font settings, and legend position. In this section, you can also customize your chart with a personalized color palette. To do this, first create your custom palette in the Theme section. Once your personalized theme is ready, open the palette drop-down menu and select your new palette from the list. Watch the video below for a practical example:

  • In the Axes section, you can control gridline visibility by enabling or disabling X and Y axis gridlines.

Additionally, you can further customize the chart's title, description, and axis titles. Click on the chart's title, description, or an axis title to open a draggable floating toolbar, where you can change the text color, adjust the font size, underline it, modify the alignment (left, center, or right), and adjust the font weight (regular, bold, medium, or italic).

With these customization options, you can create visually appealing and data-driven charts that effectively communicate insights within your Canvas.

  • In the Chart Selection section, you can select the waterfall chart.

  • The Main Settings section allows you to add a title and description and define the bar direction (horizontal or vertical).

  • The Connector Lines section allows you to show or hide connecting lines and choose a line style such as dashed, dotted, or solid.

  • The Labels section provides options to toggle data labels on or off. If enabled, you can configure label position, text color, and background color.

  • The Style section allows you to adjust the visual appearance of the chart, including font settings, legend position, and bar radius. In this section, you can also customize your chart with a personalized color palette. To do this, first create your custom palette in the Theme section. Once your personalized theme is ready, open the palette drop-down menu and select your new palette from the list. Furthermore, here you can customize the color scheme of your waterfall chart, including the color for steps (totals, intermediate sums, and connecting lines), ascending values (positive contributions), and descending values (negative contributions), allowing for clear visual distinction between different elements in the chart.

  • In the Axes section, you can control gridline visibility by enabling or disabling X and Y axis gridlines.

Additionally, you can further customize the styling of the chart's title, description, and axis titles. Click on the chart's title, description, or an axis title to open a draggable floating toolbar, where you can change the text color, adjust the font size, underline it, modify the alignment (left, center, or right), and adjust the font weight (regular, bold, medium, or italic).

With these customization options, you can create visually appealing and data-driven charts that effectively communicate insights within your Canvas.

Contribution charts

A Contribution waterfall chart is used when you want to illustrate how specific dimension elements contribute to a final total. In this chart type, the focus is on showing the incremental impact of each element, with a single final column representing the total result.

When you select Waterfall as the chart type, a contribution chart is created by default. In the Pivot section, under Calculate, you can switch the chart type from contribution to variation.

The Pivot section of a contribution waterfall chart displays the Category and Metric areas, where you can drag and drop dimensions from the source to build the chart.

  • Category: The grouping dimension used to define the categories in the chart (e.g., Product, Region). In this area, you should typically use base-level elements (e.g., specific products or regions), but consolidated elements can also be selected when a summary view is desired (e.g., total product groups, regions).

  • Metric: The numerical value or measure used to calculate contribution or variance (e.g., Sales, Revenue).

You can drag and drop any dimension from the source cube into the Category or Metric areas. Once you have dragged dimensions from the source into these areas, you can further refine the selection by choosing specific elements, multiple elements, subsets, or other filters.

The ability to select multiple elements is especially useful for the Category area, where you can compare multiple product lines or regions within a single chart. In contrast, the Metric area is typically best suited for a single measure (e.g., Revenue).

Variation charts

A Variation Waterfall Chart is used to illustrate the difference between two dimension elements and to highlight how the variance is distributed across contributing categories. This type of chart can be used, for example, to compare PnL between 2020-11-YTD and 2020-12-YTD.

To create a variation Waterfall Chart, go to the Pivot section, and under Calculate, select Variation. The Pivot section of a variation waterfall chart displays the Breakdown, Category, and Metric areas, where you can drag and drop dimensions from the source to build the chart.

  • Category: The grouping dimension used to define the categories in the chart (e.g., Product, Region). In this area, you should typically use base-level elements (e.g., specific products or regions), but consolidated elements can also be selected when a summary view is desired (e.g., total product groups, regions).

  • Metric: The numerical value or measure used to calculate contribution or variance (e.g., Sales, Revenue).

  • Breakdown: The dimension along which a variance is distributed (e.g., Time, Version, Organization, or Customer Segment). In this area, you should typically use base-level elements (e.g., months, budget vs. actual versions, specific cost centers), but consolidated elements can also be selected when a higher-level overview is desired (e.g., quarters, total versions).

You can drag and drop any dimension from the source cube into the Category, Metric, or Breakdown areas. Once you have dragged dimensions from the source into these areas, you can further refine the selection by choosing specific elements, multiple elements, subsets, or other filters.

The ability to select multiple elements allows you to create more flexible and meaningful analyses. For example, in the Category area, you can compare multiple product lines or regions within a single chart, while in the Breakdown area you can show how variance is distributed across several time periods or versions. In contrast, the Metric area is typically best suited for a single measure (e.g., Revenue).

Editing an existing Canvas chart

To modify an existing chart, navigate to the right-side panel and select the Data tab. Then, click the Edit Chart button to open the Edit Chart Dialog, where you can adjust the chart's settings, update data sources, and customize its appearance as needed.

Formatting an existing Canvas chart object

When you click on a native Chart object on your Canvas, a Format dialog opens on the right side of the screen. In the Format tab, you can edit properties such as name, width, height, background color, radius, border, padding, and visibility.

The Visibility feature enables you to control whether a chart should be visible to your end user or not. By default, the chart's visibility is an Expression with the value "=TRUE", but you can use a variable or another Expression, e.g., FALSE, to change (hide) it. When you hide a chart, the remaining components dynamically adjust to occupy the vacant space. If you wish to maintain the hidden chart’s space and preserve your Canvas layout, you can utilize the Keep space option.

To delete your chart, you can either choose the Delete chart option in the Format tab, right-click on your chart and select Delete, or select the chart and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

To edit an existing chart, navigate to the Data tab next to the Format tab and click Edit chart.

Charts size limits (Min/Max)

The Charts in Canvas have defined minimum and maximum dimensions, and entering values outside these limits will not resize the Charts. The table below provides detailed information on these height and width limits.

Component Minimum width Maximum width Minimum height Maximum height
Chart 8 px 1600 px 8 px 1200 px

Video example

Watch the video below for a practical example of what you can do with the charts in Canvas:

Updated August 29, 2025