Charting depending on criteria & data series name as a column val

[Mr.LuckyMe]

I want to chart some prices as I want to take a look at price trends.

My problems, and I can not figure out how to solve them, are:
1. Is it possible to dynamically change the chart depending on certain
criteria (product family & selected customers)
2. As the number of customers is variable and they are in one of the
columns. Is it possible to plot a series (customer name), depending on the
name of a column?
3. I want to chart the data based on the date, but just include the dates
available, to prevent periods of time showing no change (e.g. I don't want
monthly ticks for the x axis when I have two different prices, one for 2007
and other for 2009) I think I can define the X Axis as category, but the
mixed up customers and dates, it doesn't work, unless I just have one
customer.

Here it is an example of my data:

Product Familiy Customer Name Price Date
A1 A 1 01/01/2008
A1 A 2 01/03/2008
A1 A 3 01/05/2008
A1 A 4 01/07/2008
A1 A 5 01/09/2008
A1 B 1.2 15/02/2008
A1 B 1.8 15/04/2008
A1 B 1.9 15/06/2008
A1 B 2 15/08/2008
A1 B 2.5 15/10/2008
A1 C 1 25/03/2008
A1 C 1.5 25/06/2008
A1 C 2 25/09/2008
A1 C 2.5 25/12/2008
A1 C 3 25/03/2009

Thanks,

 

[Luke M]

It sounds like you're wanting to use dynamic charting. To do this, you're
going to need to become familiar with using named ranges and possibly some
control boxes. I'd recommend taking a look at Jon Peltier's site:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/Dynamics.html

He has several pages dealing with various types of dynamic charting.

 

[Mr.LuckyMe]

Luke,

Thanks for your help.

I think my case is different. Usually for charting you use a column for
X-Axis and the series are identified as the headings of different columns
containing the data to be charted. In my case I have the X-Axis defined as
column, the values are in columns, BUT the series names are in columns, they
are not the heading of different columns.

I took a look at the Jon Peltier's site and he addresses the dynamic charts,
in my case the data is constant, the X-Axis is depending on dates that I can
define as a category (Chart options, X-Axis).

If a define the series sorted out by customer, I can get very easily the
right name for each series, but the dates are mixed up, if I sort the dates
the customers are mixed up and it is harder to define manually the series.

Any hint?

Thanks,