Lollipop

Bars with circle endpoints. It sits in the Comparison group of the widget library.

When to use it#

Use a lollipop to compare one total across categories when a solid bar feels heavy, such as spending by merchant this month or the balance of each account. The thin stems keep a long list readable.

When to pick something else#

• Comparing only a handful of totals? Use a Column chart or Bar chart.
• Showing a trend over time? Use a Line chart.
• Comparing a value against a target? Use a Bullet chart.

The data it needs#

Pick these in the Data tab of the inspector. BankSync suggests a column for each when your source has an obvious match.

Rows that share a category are combined before drawing: choose Sum, Average, Count, Min or Max on the value field. See Binding data.

Lollipop options#

This chart has no options of its own; everything on its Style tab is the shared chart styling below.

Shared chart styling#

Every chart also has the shared styling options. These apply to this one:

• Legend: position, layout and which series show.
• Axes: titles, tick labels and number format.
• Grid, title, padding and background.
• Value labels on the marks.
• Categories and labels: top N with "Other", sort order, readable labels, the handwritten callout.
• Style: corner radius, line width, opacity and animation.
• Tooltip on hover.
• Click to filter: clicking a mark can filter the rest of the dashboard. See Filters and cross-filtering.
• Colours: follow the dashboard palette or pick one for this chart.

Messy data#

• Rows for the same category are added together, so one merchant with many transactions becomes one lollipop.
• When more categories arrive than fit, the smallest fold into one grey "Other (n)" lollipop. Dates are never folded.
• Negative values draw below (or left of) zero, and the axis always includes zero.
• Categories with no number are skipped; if nothing is numeric you see "No numbers to show".
• Long names switch the chart to horizontal lollipops, sorted largest first, when the rows fit.

On a phone#

On the full-width phone card, long category names usually turn the chart horizontal so labels read left to right. With many categories, more of them fold into "Other".

Related charts#

• Bar chart: Horizontal categorical bars
• Column chart: Vertical categorical bars
• Grouped bar: Side-by-side bars per series
• Stacked bar: Composition per category
• 100% stacked bar: Composition as percentage
• Dot plot: Discrete category dots
• Bullet chart: Single value with target bands