Overview

Charts and graphs are very useful tools within Excel for visually displaying information to users. They can make it easy to see comparisons between different values or to illustrate how large a discrepancy is between the budgeted amount and the corresponding actual amount, for example. 

This article discusses how to easily add charts and graphs into your Cosmos reports by leveraging standard Excel functionality.

Details

If your report does not include any Range Lists then you should be able to insert your chart or graph directly into the report by first selecting the range of cells that you would like to include and then by navigating to the Insert tab in Excel and selecting the chart type you would like to use. 

If your report contains Range Lists there will be one simple additional step to take to make sure that the chart expands properly when the report is run. This is like adding spacer rows or columns when Adding Sums and Subtotals to a Report. 

In the example below the report is returning the salesperson code (as a Range List) and name along with the sales for each salesperson.

To insert a chart and have the chart range automatically increase when the report is run, there need to be values in the spacer row for Excel to treat the chart properly, otherwise if there are no values then the Excel chart will not expect there to be anything there and will ignore that area when the report expands when it is run. In the screenshot below, the text "Salesperson 2" has been inserted in cell B3 (beneath the Salesperson Name) and a 0 (zero) has been entered into cell C3 beneath the sales sum function. 

Once this has been done, the user can simply highlight the desired range of cells (including the spacer row in yellow) and select the chart type. 

The resulting chart when the report is run will look like the example below:

Once the chart has been added, you can then go in and delete the "Salesperson 2" text and the zero that were entered to ensure that Excel inserted the chart ranges properly.