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Axis Points—Limiting and Sorting

The number of X axis (category) or Z axis (series) labels can be limited to some predefined number. This can be useful if you are interested in displaying only the N highest or N lowest values for some field or calculated Y value. For example, you could display the 10 highest revenue accounts by charting the Revenue field in descending order and limiting the X axis to 10 data points. This is accomplished using two properties of the axis label Chart Element for the appropriate axes, as follows:

• Divisions property (X or Z axis). Enter an integer to limit the number of X axis or Z axis labels to the number you enter. Note that the AxisId property must be either XAxis or ZAxis, and the Type property must be AxisLabel.
• SortSpecification property (Y axis). Enter a value of Ascending or Descending. Note that the AxisId property must be set to YAxis and the Type property must be AxisLabel.

You can set up a sort specification on the Y axis independent of limiting the number of X or Z axis divisions. A sort specification on Y will order the data points regardless of whether you are limiting the display to the first N points. The converse is not true, however; it would not make sense to set a number of X or Z axis divisions without also setting a sort specification on Y.

You also can sort on X axis or Z axis labels instead of Y axis values. To accomplish this, you set the Sort Specification in the X axis (or Z axis) label Chart Element object definition rather than in the Y axis label. For example, if the X axis is displaying country names, they can appear alphabetically from left to right. This is different from sorting on Y axis values, which are numeric values from a field in a business component or function based on that field.