Column Chart in SSRS

SSRS Column charts are useful for comparisons. By seeing the Column Chart, one can understand the business without any further concerns.

For example, compare product Sales of this year with the previous year, Monthly / Yearly performance of an employee, customer orders compared to last year or last month or last week, etc.

In this article, we will show you how to create and configure the Column chart in SSRS with an example. The below screenshot will show you the Data Source and Dataset we used for this SSRS Column Chart Report.

SQL Command we used in the above screenshot is:

-- SQL Query for the SSRS Column Chart
SELECT PivotTable.SalesTerritoryCountry, 
       [2010] AS [Year 2010],
       [2011] AS [Year 2011], 
       [2012] AS [Year 2012], 
       [2013] AS [Year 2013], 
       [2014] AS [Year 2014]
FROM (
      SELECT Ter.SalesTerritoryCountry
	    ,Dt.CalendarYear 
	    ,Fact.SalesAmount 
      FROM DimSalesTerritory AS Ter
	INNER JOIN
           FactInternetSales AS Fact ON 
	       Ter.SalesTerritoryKey = Fact.SalesTerritoryKey
	INNER JOIN
	   DimDate AS Dt ON
	       Dt.DateKey = Fact.OrderDateKey 
    ) AS SourceTable

PIVOT (
     SUM (SourceTable.SalesAmount) FOR 
	  SourceTable.CalendarYear IN
	   ([2010],[2011],[2012],[2013],[2014] )
      ) AS PivotTable

Create a Column Chart in SSRS

When you drag and Drop the Chart from Toolbox to Design space, a new window called Select Chart Type will be opened to select the required chart from the available once. In this example, we are selecting the Simple Column Chart, as shown in the below screenshot.

Once you click on the Ok button, the Column chart will display in the design region with dummy data.

Click on the empty space around the SSRS Column Chart will open the Chart Data window

• Values: Any Numeric (Metric) value such as sales amount, Tax, Total Sales, Customer count, etc. All these values will be aggregated using an aggregate function (Sum, Count, etc.) because we are grouping them with the category group items.
• Category Group: Please specify the Column name on which you want to partition your Column Chart.

In this example, we will create a Column chart in SSRS for the Year 2011 and 2012 Sales by country. So, Drag and drop the Year 2011 and 2012 column from dataset to chart data values and Country Name in the category group.

Click on the Preview button to see the SSRS column chart report preview.

If you observe the above screenshot, It is providing a perfect result. However, we are unable to identify the exact amount of Sales for each country. To resolve these situations, We have to use the Data Labels.

To add Data labels to column chart in SSRS, Right-click on the Blue bars (representing 2011 Year). Then, select the Show Data Labels option from the context menu to show the values.

Second, Right-click on the Yellow bars (representing 2012 Year). Next, select Show Data Labels option from the context menu to show the values.

Click on the Preview button to see the Column Chart report preview.

Please refer Formatting Column-Chart to understand the steps involved in formatting the above-specified column chart with a practical example.