Chapter 8. Charts, Hyperlinks, and Drilldowns
It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the world of reporting, we call these pictures as Charts. With the help of charts, one can present a large amount of data with relative ease, in comparison to presenting with the help of huge data outputs. Charts are useful when used with raw data to drive home points such as percentages, or when used with other charts to build dashboards.
BIRT has an exceptional charting engine. BIRT can create a number of different Chart types, including the tried and tested pie chart, bar chart, and line charts. In addition, there are several other chart types that were extras to BIRT's commercial counterpart such as the Meter Chart and Gantt chart.
In the following sections, we are going to look at building a few different charts centered around employee sales performance. First, we will build a pie chart that will illustrate the top employees based on sales. We will then create a gauge chart that...
