When visualizing time-series data on a serial chart, in the Category field drop-down list, you need to choose the field that contains the date and time values. These values can be stored in fields of date, string, or numeric type. For best performance, it is recommended that you store these values in a date field type. You can convert string or numeric fields containing date and time values to date fields using the Convert Time Field tool. If you choose not to convert string or numeric fields to date fields, you can indicate that these fields contain date values and use Dashboards to parse the data into dates using the parse dates setting.
Parse dates
On the Data tab of the serial chart's configuration, turn on the Parse dates toggle button.
The date settings that appear for parsing dates depend on the type of category field chosen. A field's data type is displayed next to the field name in the Category field drop-down list.
If the data type of the field is date, no formatting information is required, and only the Minimum period setting is available. If you choose a numeric or string field, the Minimum period and Parsing pattern settings are available. The pattern you choose determines the format of the date and time values after being parsed into dates. The date and time values in the data must be stored in the same format you choose for the Parsing pattern setting. The available patterns depend on whether the field type is numeric or string.
Numeric field type
If the field type is numeric (for example, Short, Long, Float, or Double), the following standard numeric time formats are provided in the Parsing pattern drop-down menu:
- yyyy
- yyyyMM
- yyyyMMdd
- yyyyMMddHHmmss
String field type
If the field type is string, the following standard string time formats are provided in the Parsing pattern drop-down menu:
- yyyy
- yyyyMM
- yyyy/MM
- yyyy-MM
- yyyyMMdd
- yyyy/MM/dd
- yyyy-MM-dd
- yyyyMMddHHmmss
- yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss
- yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
- yyyyMMddHHmmss.S
- yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.S
- yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S
- yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.S
Minimum period
The minimum period setting determines how time specific the chart categories can be. The options for minimum period are as follows:
- Second
- Minute
- Hour
- Day
- Month
- Year
For example, in the following chart, the minimum period is set to Month. This means that the minimum time period on which a category in this chart can be based is a month, rather than a day, an hour, a minute, or a second.
When the minimum period is set to Month, it also means that a chart category can be based on time periods that are longer than a month, such as a year. In Dashboards, categories are based on time periods that are longer than the minimum period if there is a high density of data categories based on the minimum period. This avoids displaying labels for each category and creating visual clutter. The minimum period setting also impacts which period formats you can specify on the category axis. You can't specify formats for shorter time periods than the one you choose for the minimum period, but you can specify formats for longer time periods than the one you choose. For example, if the minimum period is set to month, you can't specify a format for day labels, but you can specify a format for year labels.
For more information about how to specify patterns for period labels, see Format dates.
For serial charts that have parse dates enabled and are either a line or smoothed line chart, you can connect gaps caused by missing data points. On the Series tab of the serial chart's configuration, use the Connect gaps toggle button to connect or create breaks in the chart where there are missing data points such as empty values for that time period.