---
title: "Radial bar"
description: "Polar bar chart. What the radial bar is for, the data it needs and every option it has."
section: "Widgets"
canonical: "https://banksync.io/docs/widgets/chart-radial-bar"
specs: ["dashboards"]
operationBindings: [{"capability":"dashboards","operation":"dashboards.author"}]
---

Polar bar chart. It sits in the **Part-of-whole** group of the widget library.

![Example radial bar on a BankSync dashboard](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/docs/charts/radial-bar.26fc883fd08f22f5.png)

## When to use it

Use a radial bar chart to rank a few categories in a compact, eye-catching way, such as your top spending categories or the balances of your main accounts. Each category is a ring, and its arc runs further round the circle the bigger its value is. Rings sort largest first, outside in.

## When to pick something else

- More than a handful of categories, or values readers must compare precisely? Use a **Bar chart**. Rings further in are shorter for the same angle, which makes lengths harder to judge.
- Progress towards a single goal? Use a **Progress** bar or a **Gauge**.
- Shares of a total? Use a **Donut 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.

| Field      | Needed   | Pick                 | Notes |
| ---------- | -------- | -------------------- | ----- |
| **X axis** | Yes      | a category or a date |       |
| **Y axis** | Yes      | a number             |       |
| **Series** | Optional | a category           |       |
| **Color**  | Optional | a category           |       |

Rows that share a category are combined before drawing: choose **Sum**, **Average**, **Count**, **Min** or **Max** on the value field. See [Binding data](/docs/widgets/binding-data).

## Radial bar 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](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#legend): position, layout and which series show.
- [Axes](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#axes): titles, tick labels and number format.
- [Grid](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#grid), [title](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#title), [padding](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#padding) and [background](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#background).
- [Value labels](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#value-labels) on the marks.
- [Categories and labels](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#categories-and-labels): top N with "Other", sort order, readable labels, the handwritten callout.
- [Style](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#style): corner radius, line width, opacity and animation.
- [Tooltip](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#tooltip) on hover.
- Click to filter: clicking a mark can filter the rest of the dashboard. See [Filters and cross-filtering](/docs/dashboards/filters-and-cross-filtering).
- [Colours](/docs/widgets/chart-styling#palette): follow the dashboard palette or pick one for this chart.

## Messy data

- Rows in the same category are added together.
- At most eight rings are drawn. Anything smaller folds into one grey "Other" ring.
- Negative values are dropped. If only negatives remain you see "Only negative values; nothing to show".
- All zeros show "Everything is zero for this period".
- The largest value sweeps three-quarters of the circle.

## On a phone

Rings get thinner as the card shrinks. When a ring is too thin for its label, the labels move into a legend below the chart. Keep to five or six categories on phones.

## Related charts

- [Pie chart](/docs/widgets/chart-pie): Categorical share
- [Donut chart](/docs/widgets/chart-donut): Pie with center label
- [Treemap](/docs/widgets/chart-treemap): Nested rectangles by value
- [Sunburst](/docs/widgets/chart-sunburst): Hierarchical radial wedges
- [Nightingale](/docs/widgets/chart-nightingale): Radial polar pie
- [Mosaic](/docs/widgets/chart-mosaic): Marimekko tiled cells
- [Waffle](/docs/widgets/chart-waffle): 100-unit grid share
- [Funnel](/docs/widgets/chart-funnel): Conversion stage flow
- [Pyramid](/docs/widgets/chart-pyramid): Inverted funnel