Grouped By Time layout
Grouped by Time layout arranges items from left to right across your chart in groups. Items that occur at similar times are displayed close together. For example, you can group telephone calls that occur within an hour of each other to find periods of high activity.
The Grouped by Time layout is useful for:
- High volume imported data with dates and times, for example telephone billings or financial transactions, to find bursts of activity that might be related.
- A timeline chart with many events that take place at irregular intervals.
- Reducing the widths of charts that are too wide when laid out proportionally. This layout preserves an indication of periods of high activity and periods of low activity.
Using a Grouped by Time layout results in a chart in which the distance between each subsequent item is defined by you. It is a non-proportional layout, as the gap between items is not equivalent to the time between them.
A Grouped by Time layout is not appropriate for charts that do not contain controlling items.
By using a Grouped by Time layout, you can:
- Apply the layout to the entire chart, limit the layout to selected items, or limit the layout to items that are in a specified date and time range.
- Set the maximum time difference between consecutive items to consider them to be in a group.
- Set the distance between groups.
- Set the distance between successive items in a group. You can choose to set the distance between all items or controlling items. For example, by selecting controlling items you can prevent other items from being spaced out to the right of each group and therefore produce a more compact layout. In this more compact layout, the separation between groups is always between controlling items.