Add a Color Role to a Custom Chart & use to apply 3 color Chart wall gradient

[OscarBoots1]

Hi Forum,

I'm looking for a solution to add a Red/Yellow/Green gradient Chart wall for a Customer Bar/Line chart.

The info on the below page is SAS advises that the 3 color gradient is available to Customer Charts with a Color role.

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaug/67500/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p0j04lo7pg2geun1qhpz9...

I've then created a Customer Bar /Line chart & gone to add a Color role but the option is greyed out?

I need this in order to get the 3 color option, can anyone advise what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks

[OscarBoots1]

Hello to any SAS Employees/Developers out there!

I've had a couple of questions recently that are referred to in the Manual for VA. I've managed so far to work around the issue apart from this one.

I'd like to know what I do in the case that no-one seems to know the answer to my question?

I find it strange that no-one can answer my question on how to add gradient background to a Custom chart. it is clearly referred to in documentation that I need to have a Color Role in my Chart, so I'm chasing that option up first.

No takers??

Is this too hard even for SAS developers or is it the case that no-one knows?

Can someone tell me who to contact to actually get an answer?

Thanks. 

[AnnaBrown]

Hi OscarBoots1,

Thanks for your post! If your question is urgent and you need an immediate response, contact SAS Technical Support.  Responses from the community often arrive faster than that, but that’s not a guarantee. We do try to provide a SAS response to otherwise unanswered questions in a reasonable time. I've passed along your question to some internal SAS experts, so stay tuned.

Best,

Anna 

[OscarBoots1]

Thanks Anna, appreciate your response!  :  >

[TedStolarczyk]

OscarBoots1:

I'm not in Tech Support but my understanding is that if the graph element / object type does NOT have a Color role in Visual Analytics Designer interface itself, Custom Graph Builder won't be able to give it one.  Neither Bar Chart nor Line Chart has a Color role within Visual Analytics Designer interface itself.  The following do have a Color role in Visual Analytics Designer interface itself: Scatter Plot, Bubble Plot, Vector Plot and Tree Map.  Rest of graph elements / object types are typically colored via Group Role, Styles / Data Colors (within Visual Analytics Designer interface itself) and Display Rules (within Visual Analytics Designer interface itself) - where applicable.

As Anna mentioned, SAS Tech Support should hopefully be able to shed more light on the manner.

Sincerely,

Ted Stolarczyk, SAS Customer Loyalty team

[OscarBoots1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Ted & Anna,

I contacted Tech support & Ted you are correct.

If the Custom chart shows a 'greyed out' option, it is not available for that chart type.

The charts that support the Colour option are;

- Scatter Plot

- Bubble Plot

- Tree Map

- Geo Bubble Map

- Geo Region Map

- Word Cloud

I also found out how to Change Colours for Chart lines, Bars etc the right way.

Firstly, when you have your Chart & Roles selected, the default colour, Blue, will be shown as the first colour for the chart.

In order to change this, Select your chart object and go to the 'Styles' Tab >> 'Data Colors' area & note the 'Fill' Colours have the Blue colour in the Top Left position.

If you want to change this colour, firstly select the Blue colour in the Top Left of the 'Fill' area boxes, this will open the Custom Colours chart where you can select another colour.

Select another colour & it will replace the Blue on the chart.

Note the new colour moves to the Top left of the 'Fill' colours box.

Also, note that the colours in the 'Fill' box aren't just random colours, the Top Row reflects the colours already in the Chart.

So you can select that colour, go to the custom colours, choose another colour & it will update.

This info is not documented in the User Manual but should be as it was driving me crazy trying to change colours.

Btw, tech Support had to try the U.S. to get this info so can someone at SAS please get this detail added to the User manual??

Thanks & I hope this helps other users.

With multiple colours, you can select a new colour by selecting the colours    

[Joy_SAS]

Hi @OscarBoots1,

Thank you for the information you provided after your conversation with Technical Support. 

We are republishing the SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 User's Guide tomorrow to address some issues that were discovered in the SAS Visual Data Builder chapters. I opened a new defect so that we can update the User's Guide with the information that you requested. This defect will be addressed in the next republish. We're currently republishing the SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 User's Guide every 2-3 months, so it's likely that we'll be able to address your request in a similar timeframe.

Thank you again for your feedback,

Joy

[OscarBoots1]

Thanks Joy, That's great!

Thank you.

[Joy_SAS]

Hi @OscarBoots1,

I wanted to let you know that we republished the SAS Visual Analytics 7.4 User's Guide yesterday to address the issues you found.  (Both the PDF and the HTML versions are available.)  Here's where the related changes are:

• Specify Graph Styles - Now explains how to change the colors in a graph, and includes a new screen capture.
• About Custom Graphs - Now includes a note about the data roles.  If they aren't available for a report object in the designer, then they aren't available for a custom graph.

Thank you for your feedback, and for helping us improve the documentation.

-Joy