Bump Chart Mod for Spotfire®

Version 1.1.1, released November 2021

The bump chart is a special type of line chart designed for exploring changes in ranking over time. It is useful to compare the position / performance / ranking of multiple observations rather than the actual values itself.

Data requirement

Every mod handles missing, corrupted and/or inconsistent data in different ways. It is advised to always review how the data is visualized.

The bump chart can be used to visualize any dataset that contains items ranked at different time points. In order to make it work properly a data table with at least three columns is required:

One column should identify the items, for example, names of teams, countries, people or objects.
One column should contain a time point, for example years, or weeks.
One columns should contain the rank of the team, country, person or object at different times.

Setting up the chart

Let's say we have data about the popularity of different fruits:

Year	Rank	Fruit	Vote
2018	1	Figs	179
2018	2	Huckleberries	152
2018	3	Cantaloupes	137
2018	4	Apples	130
2018	5	Bananas	76
2018	6	Grapes	74
2018	7	Elderberries	58
2018	8	Jackfruits	56
2018	9	Dates	26
2018	10	Ice Cream Beans	17
2019	1	Elderberries	176
2019	2	Grapes	115
2019	3	Cantaloupes	110
2019	4	Huckleberries	110
2019	5	Figs	104
2019	6	Bananas	99
2019	7	Dates	98
2019	8	Apples	92
2019	9	Jackfruits	80
2019	10	Ice Cream Beans	77
2020	1	Cantaloupes	155
2020	2	Grapes	138
2020	3	Apples	127
2020	4	Ice Cream Beans	125
2020	5	Figs	118
2020	6	Jackfruits	118
2020	7	Huckleberries	98
2020	8	Dates	56
2020	9	Elderberries	55
2020	10	Bananas	18
2021	1	Grapes	146
2021	2	Jackfruits	140
2021	3	Bananas	123
2021	4	Apples	109
2021	5	Figs	118
2021	6	Cantaloupes	91
2021	7	Huckleberries	80
2021	8	Figs	77
2021	9	Elderberries	70
2021	10	Dates	54

A basic bump chart can be configured to show how the ranking of different fruits have changed over time by creating a bump chart with the following settings:

Ranking = Rank
Period = Year
Line By = Fruit

Optionally you could also use colors to show another measure. E.g:

Color By = Avg(Votes)

The end result will look something like this:

Configuring the chart

The bump chart can be configured by setting the period, ranking, line by and color expression. A color gradient will be used if two circles with different colors are connected.

Once the bump chart is configured and has data provided, you can also display the columns labels vertically. The setting is accessed by clicking on a scale.

Using the chart

Tooltip

Hovering over a circle will show the ranking, period and line by column and value.

Marking

Clicking on a circle will mark it in the bump chart and in all other visualizations that uses the same marking. Clicking or dragging in the empty space in between circles will clear the marking. You can mark several circles by Ctrl-clicking on them. Clicking and dragging allow you to select multiple circles. You can select all circles within a range of periods or rankings by dragging along the column or row labels. Clicking on a line will mark the entire line and all circles in that group. Clicking on a row label will also mark the entire group. Ctrl-clicking on a row will add or remove the entire group to or from the current selection. Marked circles will be labeled with the Y-axis value.

Help and support

This Mod for Spotfire® is not supported by Spotfire Support.
In the event of issues or to suggest features and enhancements, submit an issue in the Mod's GitHub repository.
For general questions about Mods, please post in the Spotfire Community Forum with the topic "Mods" to make it visible and routed to the appropriate team(s) to respond.

More information about Mods for Spotfire®

Spotfire Community Exchange: A safe and trusted place to discover ready-to-use Mods
Developer Documentation: Introduction and tutorials for Mods developers
Mods code examples on GitHub: A public repository for example projects

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