Once you've created a chart, you can customize the appearance of it to best present the data. You can share a chart in different formats and add a chart to a new or existing dashboard.
Change the appearance of your chart
When you run your query in NRQL mode or view your chart while using metrics and events to specify data, New Relic analyzes your data and applies a chart type that fits your data.
There are several options of chart types to choose from. To change the chart type, use the Chart type menu to the right of the current chart.
one.newrelic.com > Query your data: Example of the chart type menu.
Customize your charts
While we try our best to optimize how we display your data, sometimes you may have other needs. Depending on the chart type, there are additional customization options available.
Read the sections below to learn more about the customization features. You can also see this blog and companion video to get a guided walkthrough for a few of the customization options.
Customize the date and time format for tables and billboards. You can select if you want to leave it as it is, or modify the format as Numeric or Date for each type of data.
If data is a timestamp, you can choose how to represent the date and time:
one.newrelic.com > Query your data: This is an example of a query and how to represent the date and time.
one.newrelic.com > Query your data: This is an example of a query and how to select a data format.
For numbers, select if you want us to auto-format them, or chose the number of decimals you want to see.
one.newrelic.com > Query your data: This is an example of a query and how to select the auto-format option.
On line charts and area charts you can adjust the Y axis to display the data within certain values by setting a minimum and maximum value for the axis.
If no customization option is selected, dashboards automatically displays the full Y axis from 0 to the top value plus a margin.
For line charts, area charts, and histograms, you can disable or enable the legend.
one.newrelic.com > Query your data: This is an example of a query and how to enable the Legend option.
If the number of facets on a query is larger than 2,000 for bar charts, pie charts, or tables, the Other groups facet aggregates the rest of the facets. This customization allows you to have the Other groups option visible or not.
one.newrelic.com > Query your data: This is an example of a query and how to select Other groups option.
You can customize the color of your charts per series in area, bar, line, pie, and stacked bar charts.
To customize the color per series:
Run your query.
Open the Colors menu in the chart settings.
Select the plus icon.
Select the series you want to change the color.
Select the desired color.
Query builder: This is an example of how to set the Login Service series to a different color.
You can customize the unit on your Y axis and in each of your series. It is available in area, line, and stacked bar charts.
To customize the unit on your Y axis:
Run a time series query.
Open the units menu in the customizations UI.
Use the plus icon to add a per series customization.
Select the series that needs another unit.
Select the unit.
Query builder: This is an example of how to customize your unit on your Y axis.
Time series charts sometimes look broken when there is a zero in the event attribute being queried. However, a null value may not always represent the situation correctly.
You can choose an option for displaying null values to make your time series charts easier to understand. They include:
Leave as null (default): Null values show as gaps in the chart, which can result in disconnected lines. You may want to use this option if it's important to find gaps in reporting, or when it doesn't make sense to connect a continuous line.
Remove the value: Null points won't exist in the chart. For example, a chart that displays a data point per hour in a day would show fewer than 24 points.
Preserve the last value: Null values will keep the value from the previous period. For example, if a chart reports cumulative sales each hour, but is missing an hour's data, the missing hour would reflect the same number of sales as the previous hour.
Transform the value to zero: The missing data shows up as a zero. This option could be useful when no data means there is no meaningful transaction, count, or usage.
You can choose from four ways to display null values in your charts.
To customize how your null values appear:
Run a time series query or edit an existing chart.
Open the Null values menu in the chart settings.
Select the Null values option to apply.
If you'd like to use different options for each series, select the icon beside Null values per series to configure them.
For more chart type-specific features, see Chart types.
Chart share and view options
Most charts have various options, including a chart-embed option, getting a chart as an image, and adding a chart to a dashboard. To read about general chart options, see Basic UI features.
Use open-source charting library
You can use Nerdpacks to create your own custom visualizations. We've also teamed up with Formidable so you can use an open-source charting library, and quickly add unique "victory charts" to your dashboards. To learn about these custom visualization Nerdpacks, watch this short video (approx. 4 minutes).
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