How to scale labeling for quantitative data on the X-axis of a visualization

Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 2, 2020
 

The Problem

Someone sends you the following screenshot from a dashboard tile or a visualization from an explore, and wants to know why not all months are being represented on the X-axis.

Screen Shot 2020-01-02 at 3.24.25 PM.png

A Solution

By default, the displayed points on both axes of the chart scale with the size of the window. The following screenshot is the same visualization as above, automatically scaled to display in a smaller window.

Screen Shot 2020-01-02 at 3.31.08 PM.png

How would one change this to force all data points on the X-axis to be represented properly?

  1. In the visualization in the explore (i.e. if you are troubleshooting a dashboard tile, navigate to the underlying visualization), click the gear icon at the top right hand corner of the pane.
  2. Scroll over to 'X', and change the 'Scale Type' to 'Ordinal'.
  3. Note that this can be accomplished through LookML.

Screen Shot 2020-01-02 at 4.00.06 PM.png

A Caveat

Note that even when the scale type is set to ordinal, there will be times when not every data point will be shown on the X-axis due to space limitations:

Screen Shot 2020-01-02 at 4.06.03 PM.png

This content is subject to limited support.                

Version history
Last update:
‎06-22-2021 03:20 PM
Updated by: