This week’s challenge focuses on allowing the user flexibility in both how they want to ‘slice’ the measure being reported (actual headcount), and how they want the results displayed to meet the needs of the question they are trying to answer. Whilst the above could be built using multiple sheets and ‘sheet swapping’ using dynamic zone visibility, the aim is to try to build within a single sheet.

Let’s get cracking.

Enhancing the data

Not all the fields we need to slice the data by are included initially in the data provided, so we need to define some additional calculated fields, as stated in the requirements.

Contract Type

IF [FTE] = 1 THEN ‘Full Time’ ELSE ‘Part Time’ END

To determine the Age Bracket an employee belongs to, we first need to know their age. Usually this would be based on today’s date (using the TODAY() function), but as this data is static, we’re going to pretend today is 01 Dec 2022, by capturing this in a parameter.

pToday

date parameter defaulted to 01 Dec 2022

We can then work out how old the employee is (in complete years) on 01 Dec 2022

Employee Age

IF DATEPART(‘dayofyear’, [Birth Date])<=DATEPART(‘dayofyear’,[pToday]) THEN
DATEDIFF(‘year’, [Birth Date], [pToday])
ELSE
DATEDIFF(‘year’, [Birth Date], [pToday])-1
END

The ‘dayofyear’ parameter of the DATEPART function returns as it suggests the day of the year, so is a number from 1 to 365 (or 366 in a leap year). So this calculation is basically saying, if the birthday falls before ‘Today’, then they’ve had their birthday in that year, so a simple difference between the years suffices, otherwise the birthday hasn’t happened yet, so take one off the difference in years.

We can then create

Age Bracket

IF [Employee Age] < 20 THEN ‘Under 20’
ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 30 THEN ’20-29′
ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 40 THEN ’30-39′
ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 50 THEN ’40-49′
ELSEIF [Employee Age] < 60 THEN ’50-59′
ELSE ‘Over 60’
END

Setting up the parameters

All the user interactivity is driven through selection of parameters.

pDisplayType

string parameter defaulted to Butterfly Chart with a list of values Stacked, Side by Side, Butterfly which each have a slightly different Display As value (up to you whether you want to do this).

pDisplayRowsBy

string parameter defaulted to Age Bracket with required options listed.

pSplitBarsBar

string parameter defaulted to Contract Type with required options listed

Building the Viz

The pDisplayRowsBy parameter defines the field that we want to display on the Rows shelf. The parameter is just a string value though which we need to map to a proper field from the data set

Dimension – Rows

CASE [pDisplayRowsBy]
WHEN ‘Age Bracket’ THEN [Age Bracket]
WHEN ‘Contract Type’ THEN [Contract Type]
WHEN ‘Department’ THEN [Department]
WHEN ‘Gender’ THEN [Gender]
WHEN ‘Nationality’ THEN [Nationality]
END

The pSplitBarsBy parameter defines the field that will be used to colour the bars. Again we need to map this to fields in the data set

Dimension – Colour

CASE [pSplitBarsBy]
WHEN ‘Gender’ THEN [Gender]
WHEN ‘Contract Type’ THEN [Contract Type]
END

The existing Employees(Count) field that is automatically included is just a counter for the number of rows in the data set, so is essentially our headcount number. However, we need to think about how the display needs to look for the different types of chart, specially the butterfly chart.

When building a butterfly chart, the bars to the right of the middle axis are plotted as positive numbers, while the bars to the left are plotted as negative numbers (so the middle is actually 0). So in the event the display type of Butterfly Chart is selected, we need to make some adjustments, so that some of the values are plotted on the negative axis. This means our calculation looks like

Headcount

IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Butterfly’ THEN
IF MIN([Dimension – Colour]) IN (‘Part Time’, ‘Female’) THEN COUNT([Employees]) * -1
ELSE COUNT([Employees])
END
ELSE
COUNT([Employees])
END

If it’s a Butterfly chart, then if the values associated to the field we’re colouring the bars by are ‘Part Time’ (pSplitBarsBy = Contract Type) or ‘Female’ (pSplitBarsBy = Gender), then negate the count of employees, otherwise just return the count of employees.

Let’s start putting some of this into a viz to see what we’ve got…

On a sheet, add Dimension-Rows to Rows and Headcount to Columns. Add Dimension-Colour to Colour. Show the 3 core parameters and adjust the colours to suit.

Change the pSplitBarsBy to Gender, and adjust colours again. Change to ‘N/A’ and adjust again, so all possible options for the Dimension-Colour field have been set. Change pSplitBarsBy back to Contract Type.

Now change pDisplayType to Stacked Bar.

We want Full Time segment of the bar to appear first against the zero line of the axis, so manually re-order the options in the colour legend, so Part Time is listed first.

Change pSplitBarsBy to Gender and verify that the Male segment of the bars are displaying first against the zero line of the axis. Change pSplitBarsBy back to Contract Type.

For the side by side bar chart, we need another dimension on Rows that is essentially the Dimension -Colour field. However, we only want the value when the pDisplayType is Side by Side. So we need

Dimension – Side by Side

IF [pDisplayType]=’Side By Side’ THEN [Dimension – Colour] ELSE ” END

Add this to Rows after the Dimension-Rows field.

This adds an additional column to the display. While we’re in side by side or butterfly ‘mode’ , nothing is displayed. Change pDisplayType to Side by Side and we get the separation required.

Since the Colour legend is defining what the bar relates to, we can hide this field (right click on the Dimension – Side by Side pill and uncheck show header.

We want to also show the % of Total headcount split for each row. Create a new field

Total Employees Per Row

{FIXED [Dimension – Rows] : COUNT([Employees])}

then create

% Total Headcount

[Headcount]/SUM([Total Employees Per Row])

and format to a custom number format of 0%;0%. This is a % with 0 decimal places, but the custom format is used as we want negative numbers (caused by the butterfly chart type) to be displayed as +ve percentages.

Add % Total Headcount to Columns and verify the display for the different display types. Hint – if the calc is working as expected, the Stack Bar option should show 100% 🙂

Labelling the Viz

We can’t simply add labels using the usual method (show mark labels) and adjusting the positioning, as it won’t always show what we want, where we want for all the different display types. So we need to employ different techniques based on the chart being displayed.

Let’s start with the stacked bar chart. For the Headcount bars, we want to display the total number of employees at the end of the bar, and for the % Total Headcount, we want the % displayed in the middle of the bar.

Create a new field

Ref Line – Stacked

IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Stacked’ THEN [Headcount] END

Add this to Detail shelf of the Headcount marks card, then add a reference line to the Headcount axis (right click axis > Add Reference Line) that for each pane references the Sum of the Ref Line – Stacked field, and just displays the Value on the Label. No line or tooltip is displayed.

Format the reference line (right click the ‘invisible’ line) to adjust the colour and alignment of the font.

Add % Total Headcount to the Label shelf of the % Total Headcount marks card. You may need to adjust the width of the bars so you can see the values. Adjust the font to be white.

Change the pDisplayType parameter to Side by Side. No labels should be displayed. This is because the label we used for the headcount bar was based on the display type, and the label we used for the % total has been coloured white and is therefore invisible on a white background (set it to black and you’ll see it displayed). So again we need more fields

Ref Line – Side By Side

IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Side By Side’ THEN [Headcount] END

Add this to the Detail shelf of the Headcount marks card, and again add a reference line to the Headcount axis, this time setting the scope at the cell level.

Once again format the reference line to set the font and alignment.

Create

Label – % of Total Side by Side

IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Side By Side’ THEN [% Total Headcount] END

Format to a % with 0 dp and add this to the Label shelf of the % Total Headcount marks card, and then adjust the Label so this field is appropriately coloured and listed before the other label (which is coloured white).

Change the pDisplayType parameter to Butterfly chart. The % labels should already display. We just need to sort the labelling for the actual headcount. For this we need

Ref Line – Butterfly Pos

IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Butterfly’ THEN
IF [Headcount] >= 0 THEN [Headcount] END
END

and

Ref Line – Butterfly Neg

IF [pDisplayType] = ‘Butterfly’ THEN
IF [Headcount] < 0 THEN [Headcount] END
END

Add both these fields to the Detail shelf of the Headcount marks card. Then add reference lines for each of the two fields

Then format both the reference lines so the font and alignment is set as required (in the case of the Ref Line – Butterfly Neg reference line, it needs to be left aligned)

Add Headcount and % Total Headcount to the Tooltip shelf of the All marks card, and then adjust the tooltip. Finally tidy up by

• Adjusting format of the Dimension – Rows values and aligning middle left.
• Hide field labels for rows
• Remove column dividers
• Adjust row dividers to be more subtle
• Remove gridlines, zero lines, axis ticks & rulers
• Remove the Headcount & % Total Headcount axis.

Add the viz to a dashboard. I used a horizontal container placed above the viz to add text objects to represent the headings. The first text box just the referenced the pDisplayRowsBy parameter value, so it was dynamic.

My published viz is here.

Happy vizzin’!

Donna