I have requirements for a waterfall chart that I'm having trouble solving.
There's no problem removing the start and end columns, and this results in
columns that cross the X-axis. Jon Peltier's page on 'Waterfall Charts that
Cross the X Axis' was very helpful.

I've also looked at Jon's 'Fancy Waterfall Chart' page for
aggregating/stacking columns, but this isn't quite what I'm after. I have a
large number of Categories and wish to aggregate some of them arbitrarily
(ie, it needs a person to decide which to aggregate). Obviously only
negatives will be aggregated together, and likewise with positives.

A given column could have up to four stacked columns, and the difficulty is
in the calculation for each stacked column which could cross the X axis,
complicating the matter significantly. Has anyone already dealt with this
and have a solution?

Thanks in advance

Paul Martin
Melbourne, Australia

Paul -

It is complex, but if you're good at bookkeeping, you should be able to
keep it straight. For each item in the stack you need four series: gain
above the axis, loss above the axis, gain below the axis, loss below the
axis. In my examples, I had a simgle item, and both gain columns are
green and both losses red. You need a cumulative sum of the items, so
you know for example which gains are below the axis, which particular
gain spans the axis, and which gains are above the axis.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://peltiertech.com/



Paul Martin wrote:
> I have requirements for a waterfall chart that I'm having trouble solving.
> There's no problem removing the start and end columns, and this results in
> columns that cross the X-axis. Jon Peltier's page on 'Waterfall Charts that
> Cross the X Axis' was very helpful.
>
> I've also looked at Jon's 'Fancy Waterfall Chart' page for
> aggregating/stacking columns, but this isn't quite what I'm after. I have a
> large number of Categories and wish to aggregate some of them arbitrarily
> (ie, it needs a person to decide which to aggregate). Obviously only
> negatives will be aggregated together, and likewise with positives.
>
> A given column could have up to four stacked columns, and the difficulty is
> in the calculation for each stacked column which could cross the X axis,
> complicating the matter significantly. Has anyone already dealt with this
> and have a solution?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Paul Martin
> Melbourne, Australia

Jon, it is complex and I'm pretty good at layout, but I'm still
struggling to get my head around it. To start, I'm trying to get one
additional stack working and then plan to build on that. I think it
needs a cumulative sum for each additional stack - would you agree? I
don't suppose you have a small working example you could send me?

Thanks for the response

Paul

FWIW, I have created a working solution to my problem that I'm happy
to share. Email me if you're interested: melbournefilm {at} gmail
{dot} com