Charts in Dashboards

You can add live charts as widgets on Smartsheet dashboards.

Create a chart widget

1. On the right rail, select the + icon > Chart. Or select Edit > Add Widget > Chart.  

Brandfolder Image

2. Before you can select your chart, you must first select your data. Select Add Data in the Data & Chart Type section.
3. On the left side of the form, select the sheet or report that contains the table you want to chart. Then select the range of cells on the right side.
4. Once you have your data, select OK.

If you need to change your data range later, edit the widget and select Edit Data to reselect the data range. Once you've selected your data, select a chart type and formatting.

Select your chart type

Now that you've chosen the data you want to chart, you can select a chart to represent your data visually. Smartsheet automatically suggests a chart type based on how to format the data in your range. You can select a different chart type on the right side of the Edit Chart Widget form.

Brandfolder Image

• If the data doesn't look as expected, select Switch rows/columns
• Pie and donut charts don't display zero values

Use the analyze data AI tool for chart creation

AI tools are only available for Trial and Enterprise plans.

Smartsheet's analyze data AI tool offers an intelligent way to generate charts directly from your sheet. Instead of manually selecting data ranges and chart types, you can simply ask a question to create the chart widget you want.

The analyze data tool inspects your data and generates a visualization. You can change or refine the chart by asking additional questions or providing further instructions on what you’d like to see. This allows you to easily generate charts without requiring technical expertise or knowledge of formulas.

Additionally, you can add these charts to new or existing dashboards, making data analysis more accessible while reducing maintenance efforts.

There are two ways you can access the analyze data tool:

• Legacy views (Grid, Card, Gantt)
• New views (Table, Board, Timeline)

Legacy views

1. In the source sheet, navigate to the Generate with AI tools option on the right rail.

2. Select Analyze data.

   Brandfolder Image

   

New views

1. Navigate to the main toolbar in your sheet.

2. Locate and select Analyze data.

   Brandfolder Image

   

    

To add a chart to your dashboard:

1. Enter a prompt in the text box at the bottom of the panel. For example: Create a pie chart that shows a breakdown by status.

   The new chart displays.

2. Select Add to dashboard.

   Brandfolder Image

   

3. Choose whether to add it to an existing or a new dashboard, and select Add.

   Brandfolder Image

   

You can't change the chart colors, axis titles, values, or legend in the Analyze data panel on the sheet. However, after you add the chart to the dashboard, you can customize these settings for that chart on the dashboard.

Known limitations

• Once submitted, you can’t edit prompts from the dashboard. To edit the data displayed in the chart, write a new prompt in the Analyze data panel on your sheet, add the new chart to your dashboard, and delete the previous chart
• You can't change the data source as you would with regular, manually generated charts

• The Save as New option isn’t available for charts created using Analyze Data

  Example: If you try to copy a dashboard that includes charts generated using analyze data by selecting Save as New, the new copy shows blank spaces where those charts were located. Other widgets on the dashboard copy over without any problems; only the analyze data charts appear as empty spaces in the new version.

Additional considerations

• Four types of charts are supported within analyze data: column, stacked column, line, and pie. However, once the analyze data tool adds the chart to your dashboard, you can switch it to any other appropriate chart type available on the dashboard, including bar, stacked bar, and donut charts
• New charts inherit the color and other properties of your dashboard theme
• New charts are added to the bottom of your dashboard, and the dashboard automatically scrolls down to show the addition
• The chart is dynamic. This means that any changes to the data in the source sheet automatically reflect in the chart, just like with manually created charts
• To modify the chart, you need to write a new prompt from the Analyze data panel in the source sheet. After editing the chart, re-add it to the dashboard by selecting the Add to dashboard button, and then delete the old chart

Available chart and column types

Chart types

You can choose from the following chart types:

• Line
• Smooth line
• Stepped line
• Bar
• Stacked bar
• Column
• Stacked column
• Pie
• Donut
• Scatter

Column types

The chart widget supports charting only for the following column types:

• Text/Number: Values must be numbers only
• Dropdown list: Numbers only, excluding text strings that look like numbers
• Auto-Number/System-generated column: Numbers with no prefix or suffix (no text)
• Symbols: Numbers only (You can't add symbols to charts)