Area charts combine features of Line and bar charts to show how one or more values change over the progression of another value, typically that of time. Area charts differ from line charts as they feature shading between the edge of the line and the baseline.

Area charts excel at indicating change among different data sets, generally across a span of time.

See the section Area Chart Examples below to see it in action. They highlight situations where an Area chart is the best choice to display your comparative series data.

Avoid using area charts when you're examining values that add up to a fixed number, as Pie charts really shine for that type of work. You may also consider other chart types if you aren't comparing the values of a small number of data points over time, as a larger number of series may result in a chart that hides a portion of the data due to the shading effects.

Configuring an Area chart is easy with the SmartSuite Chart Setting panel. Just follow these easy steps:

Area Chart Type

Select Area Chart under Chart Settings to get started with your configuration.

The Values configuration section allows you to pick which field or fields contain the data you want to display on your chart. You can specify fields that either contain a numeric value (Number, Currency, etc.) or you can pick a text or list-type field (Single Select, Multiple Select, Linked Record and similar) and count the individual values to arrive at a number.

Specifying a "Count" value type will result in the chart drawing one value boundary line (the boundary for the value's shaded area) for each counted element. When you specify a numeric field, you also select how you want those numbers aggregated. Options include:

You can click Add New to include additional Values in your chart, allowing you to add additional series to your chart like this:

Unlike other chart types like Bar and Column, the Group By parameter is not optional for Area charts (in the same way that it is required for Line charts) - we've got to know what to display on the horizontal (X) axis! In most cases you will select some type of date field to show values in a time series, like this:

Area charts are great on their own, but even better on a SmartSuite Dashboard!

All of the configuration is the same as we've described above, with a handful of minor differences:

Once you have configured your chart parameters to your liking, click Add Widget to place it on your Dashboard. That's all there is to it!

Here are a few charting use cases to get you thinking about Area chart and when it can be the best chart type choice.

Area charts are great for comparing two related values over a time period. Here, we're looking at revenue versus expenses across months - it's easy to see at a glance where margins tightened up or increased a bit.

If your data happens to fall into discreet "tiers" you can use Area charts to clearly show the difference in category magnitude. Consider this chart where it is very easy to see the relative differences in values over time.