Overview
A Bar Chart renders dataset values as vertical bars indexed against a category axis. Bar Charts in Lens share the core authoring pattern of every Chart Datasource selection, Dimension and Measure assignment, and customization through a Properties panel with Properties and Columns tabs. Bar-specific customization centers on legend control, axis configuration (including multi-axis support for measures with different scales), bar shape and color, and chart-interaction toggles (zooming, panning, scrolling).
Bar Charts are authored from Lens → Design → Chart Designer → Visualization → Bar Chart. The same Bar Chart can be rendered in 2D or 3D — switching is a one-click action via the 3D Bar Chart icon adjacent to the Bar Chart icon. This page documents Bar-specific properties; properties shared with the Table Chart cross-link to the Table Chart PD page rather than being duplicated here.
When to use it
- Compare a measure across categorical values (revenue by region, count by status, score by team).
- Show changes over discrete time intervals (monthly sales, quarterly visits).
- Combine measures with very different scales into a single Chart using Multi-Axis.
- Display cumulative totals across categories via the Cumulative Data toggle.
- Bars need conditional styling — gradient, outline, randomized color, or custom per-column color.
- A 3D rendering of the same Bar Chart is desired for presentation purposes — switchable via the 3D Bar Chart icon without changing the underlying configuration.
Properties shared with Table Chart
The following property groups behave identically to the Table Chart and are documented in the Table Chart PD reference. They are not repeated here.
| Title | Bar-wide | Table Chart PD → Title |
| Tooltip Options | Bar-wide | Table Chart PD → Tooltip Options (Note: Bar’s Tooltip Property values are Default / Custom / Another Report, and the White Background toggle is Bar-specific. See the Bar-specific section below.) |
| Adhoc Report | Bar-wide (under Miscellaneous) | Table Chart PD → Adhoc Report |
| Header (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Header |
| Display Name (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Display Name |
| Sorting & Filter (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Sorting & Filter |
| Type (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Type |
| Drilldown (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Drilldown |
| Aggregate (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Aggregate |
| Heat Map (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Heat Map |
| Column Settings (per-column) | Per-column | Table Chart PD → Columns tab → Column Settings |
Properties tab — Bar-specific settings
| Legend Position | Legend Visible toggle; Disable All icon (hides bars from the chart); position, alignment, Offset X, Offset Y. Legend color is configurable. With Disable All on, individual legend entries can toggle bars on and off. |
| Zooming and Panning | Zooming toggle (zoom into the chart); Panning toggle (move chart horizontally); Scrolling toggle (left-to-right scrolling). All three are independent. |
| Tooltip Options | Bar-wide tooltip toggle. Tooltip Property: Default, Custom, Another Report. White Background toggle — off uses the bar’s color as the tooltip background. |
| X-Axis | Major Grid Lines; Minor Grid Lines; Hide Axis; Axis Max (number of bars displayed); label length; font family, size, weight, color. Category Axis settings: Category Axis font size, label length, font weight, font family, font color; Split Label toggle; Enable Trend Dropdown (allows or hides a trend-view dropdown on the chart). Axis Line Width; Axis Line Color. Major Ticks toggle; Minor Ticks toggle. |
| Y-Axis | Axis Max; Axis Min; axis position; Major Grid Lines; Minor Grid Lines; Start from Origin; Hide Axis; Dynamic Axis (auto-adjusts to data range); value type; format; precision; font family, size, weight, label color. Category Axis settings: font size, font weight, font family, font color; disable category axis formatting. Axis Line Width; Axis Line Color. Major Ticks toggle; Minor Ticks toggle. |
| Multi-Axis | Adds additional Y-axes. Each Multi-Axis configures: column, title, axis interval, default limit, axis min, axis max, axis position. Dynamic Axis, value type, format, precision, font family, font size, font weight, and label color match the single Y-axis behavior. |
| Bar Shape | Bar shape: Rectangular or Triangular. Optional gradient for visual emphasis. |
| Background | Plot area background color picker; theme presets and custom color support. |
| Label Position | Background transparent toggle (transparent label background). Position: outside end, center, inside end. Format: X-Axis: Y-Axis, or Y-Axis only. |
| Padding | Top, Bottom, Left, Right padding values for the chart. |
| Cumulative Data | Single toggle. When on, bars render as running cumulative totals rather than discrete values. |
| Randomized Color | Toggle. When off, primary and secondary colors are configurable and applied to the bars. When on, colors are randomized per bar. |
| Miscellaneous | Adhoc Report toggle with Generate and Send to Inbox actions plus a default records limit. Same behavior as Table Chart’s Adhoc Report. |
Columns tab — Bar-specific per-column settings
| Tool Tip | Per-column tooltip toggle. Tooltip Property: Default (default tooltip on hover), Custom HTML (user-supplied HTML rendered in the tooltip), Another Report (attaches a Chart or Report as a drilldown rendered in the tooltip). Width and height of the tooltip are adjustable. |
| Outline | Toggle on to outline the bars. Configurable outline width and color. |
| Gradient | Toggle on for a gradient fill on the bars. Start Gradient Color and End Gradient Color are configurable. |
| Label Rotation | Numeric rotation 0–360 degrees applied to the column’s axis labels. Category axis font size and step are also configurable here. |
Multi-Axis
Multi-Axis adds one or more additional Y-axes to a Bar Chart. It is used when two or more measures have substantially different scales — for example, charting revenue (in millions) and percentage (0–100) on the same Bar Chart without distorting either.
| Column | Measure column the additional Y-axis charts. |
| Title | Axis title shown beside the additional Y-axis. |
| Axis Interval | Spacing between tick values on the additional Y-axis. |
| Default Limit | Default upper limit for the additional Y-axis. |
| Axis Min | Lower bound. Defaults are inferred from data when not set. |
| Axis Max | Upper bound. Defaults are inferred from data when not set. |
| Axis Position | Side of the chart the additional Y-axis renders on (e.g., right side opposite the primary Y-axis). |
Multi-Axis shares Dynamic Axis, value type, format, precision, font family, font size, font weight, and label color behavior with the primary Y-axis.
Tooltip — dual scope
Bar Charts expose tooltips at both Bar-wide scope (Properties tab → Tooltip Options) and per-column scope (Columns tab → Tool Tip). The two scopes carry slightly different value sets in the source content.
| Bar-wide (Properties tab) | Default, Custom, Another Report. | White Background toggle. With it off, the tooltip uses the bar’s color. |
| Per-column (Columns tab) | Default, Custom HTML, Another Report. | Width and height of the tooltip are adjustable. |
Key behaviors
Most properties match Table Chart. The Bar Chart inherits Title, Tooltip Options, Adhoc Report, and the per-column Header, Display Name, Sorting & Filter, Type, Drilldown, Aggregate, Heat Map, and Column Settings from the Table Chart. Bar-specific properties listed in this page are what differs.
2D and 3D render the same Chart. The Bar Chart icon and the 3D Bar Chart icon switch the rendering mode of the same Chart without changing the data, the Dimension/Measure assignments, or the configured properties.
Legend Disable All hides without removing. The Disable All icon on Legend Position hides the bars from the chart visually, but doesn’t remove them from the data model. Clicking the icon again restores the bars. This is distinct from removing a column from the Measure slot.
Multi-Axis solves scale mismatches. When two measures live on very different scales, a single Y-axis squashes the smaller measure into invisibility. Multi-Axis assigns the smaller measure to a separate Y-axis on the opposite side of the chart, giving each measure its own scale.
Dynamic Axis auto-fits to data. Without Dynamic Axis, the Y-axis uses fixed Axis Min and Axis Max values that may not match the data’s range. Dynamic Axis recalculates the range on each render. Use it for data that varies significantly between loads; use fixed Axis Min / Max when comparing Bar Charts across views requires a consistent scale.
Zooming, Panning, and Scrolling are independent. All three toggles can be on or off independently. Zooming + Panning is a typical combination for explorable Charts; Scrolling alone is useful for wide Charts that don’t need zoom.
Randomized Color overrides primary/secondary. When Randomized Color is on, the primary and secondary color selections are ignored and each bar receives a random color. Disable Randomized Color to apply explicit color selections.