There are many, many times you’ll find yourself wanting to build a chart with multiple measures. In this blog, I’ll discuss a couple of options and the limitations and opportunities for each of them.
Let’s start with a combined axis chart.
We’re going to be using the SuperStore data set in this example.
Start by dragging Sales onto Rows, then grab your Profit, and rather than dragging that next to Sales, hover over the Sales Axis until you see the two rulers pop up, and then drop Profit there.
You’ll now see both measures as lines in the same chart, using the same axis.
Note that the pill on Rows now shows Measure Values, rather than Sales and Profit independently, and that there is now a separate card underneath Marks that has the values in it.
You can add as many values as you’d like to that card and they’ll all show up with the same axis and mark type. If, however, you’d like to mix things up a bit with the mark type, you’ll need to approach things differently.
Enter: The Dual Axis
We’ll start off like we did with Sales and Profit, but rather than dropping Profit onto the axis, we’ll leave it on Rows. We’ll then right click on the Profit pill and select Dual Axis.
Immediately after making something a dual axis, your first step should always, always, always be to synchronize the axis.
Now that we have that sorted, we’re able to swap the mark types to whatever we’d like. In this instance, I’d like to see the sales as bars and the profit as a line.
Things to consider while deciding between dual axis and combined axis charts:
The most significant limitation with dual axis charts is that you can only ever have two measures included.
When building a combined axis chart- your mark types and your tool tips will be the same for every measure. This makes the formatting simpler, but limits your ability to customize your view.