# Stacked Bar Chart
### What is the Stacked Bar Chart Widget?
The Stacked Bar Chart is a widget type available in Birdie Dashboards. It displays data as vertical bars where each bar is divided into segments representing a secondary breakdown dimension, for example, stacking individual feedback areas within each weekly time period. This makes it easy to see both the total volume for each primary category and how that total is composed across a secondary dimension, all in a single view.
The Stacked Bar Chart also offers two additional display modes that make it one of the most flexible chart types in Birdie: a **100% stacked** view that normalizes all bars to the same height and shows relative proportions instead of absolute values, and a **horizontal layout** toggle that reorients the entire chart to render bars horizontally.
#### How to extract the most value from the Stacked Bar Chart?
Use the Stacked Bar Chart when you need to understand both the magnitude and the composition of a metric at the same time. It is most useful when you want to answer questions such as:
* How has total feedback volume changed week over week, and which areas contributed most to each week's total?
* Which time periods saw the highest concentration of feedback from a specific channel?
* Are certain areas consistently dominating the feedback mix, or does the composition shift over time?
Enabling the **100% stacked column** mode is particularly valuable when comparing composition across time periods where absolute volumes differ significantly, for example, a week with 2,000 responses and a week with 400 responses are shown at the same height, making it easy to compare the proportional breakdown without the volume difference distorting the picture.
### Setting up a Stacked Bar Chart
{% stepper %}
{% step %}
#### Select the widget type
When adding a new widget to your dashboard, select **Stacked bar** from the widget type options at the top of the configuration panel.
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#### Add a title and subtitle
In the **Title** field, enter a clear name for your widget. You can also add an optional **Subtitle** to provide additional context for other users viewing the dashboard.
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{% step %}
#### Configure the vertical axis
Navigate to the **Setup** tab. The **Vertical axis** section controls the metric plotted on the Y-axis of the chart.
* **Metric**: Select the metric you want to measure. For example, choose **Overall** to display aggregate feedback counts.
* **Set vertical axis range**: Toggle this on to manually define the minimum and maximum values for the Y-axis. This is useful for standardizing charts across your dashboard or focusing on a specific value range.
{% endstep %}
{% step %}
#### Configure the horizontal axis
The **Horizontal axis** section controls how data is grouped and segmented across the X-axis.
* **Primary breakdown**: Select the main dimension to group your data by. Each item in this breakdown will appear as a separate bar on the chart. For example, selecting **Date** will render one bar per time period.
* **Selection**: Choose which specific items within the primary breakdown to include. By default, all available items are selected.
* **Limit**: Set the maximum number of bars displayed on the chart.
* **Secondary breakdown**: Select the dimension used to segment each bar into stacked portions. For example, selecting **Areas** will split each bar into colored segments, one per area, that stack to form the total bar height.
* **Secondary breakdown Limit**: Set the maximum number of segments shown within each bar.
{% hint style="info" %}
The secondary breakdown is what creates the stacking. Without it, the chart will behave like a standard bar chart with a single color per bar. Choose a secondary breakdown that meaningfully segments your primary metric. Common choices include Areas, Opportunities, or feedback channels.
{% endhint %}
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#### Configure display settings
Still in the **Setup** tab, scroll down to the **Display settings** section. The Stacked Bar Chart offers three display options:
* **Always show values on chart**: Enable this to display exact data point values directly on each segment, making precise figures readable without hovering.
* **Show 100% stacked column**: Enable this to normalize all bars to the same full height, showing each segment as a percentage of the total rather than as an absolute value. This is useful for comparing the proportional composition of bars across time periods or categories, regardless of differences in total volume.
* **Horizontal layout**: Enable this to reorient the chart so that bars extend horizontally rather than vertically. This can improve readability when the primary breakdown produces many bars, or when category labels are long.
{% hint style="info" %}
**Show 100% stacked column** and **Horizontal layout** can be enabled independently or together. When both are active, the chart renders as a 100% stacked horizontal bar chart.
{% endhint %}
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#### Set filters
Navigate to the **Filter** tab to control the time range and granularity of the data shown.
* **Date range**: Select the period you want the chart to cover. The default is **Last 30 days**.
* **Time aggregation**: Choose how data is grouped over time. The default is **Week**.
* **Advanced filters**: Use the **Add filter** option to refine the data further, for example, by a specific tag, sentiment, or source. You can also enable **Ignore global filter** if you want this widget to display independently of any dashboard-level filters.
{% endstep %}
{% step %}
#### Customize series labels and colors
Navigate to the **Customization** tab to review and edit how each series is labeled and colored in the chart.
* Each secondary breakdown item appears as a numbered series (Serie 1, Serie 2, and so on).
* You can rename any series label by editing the text field next to it.
* Click the color swatch to change the color assigned to that series.
{% hint style="info" %}
With many stacked segments, clear color choices and short label names become especially important. Consider renaming long breakdown names to shorter aliases to keep the chart legend readable.
{% endhint %}
{% endstep %}
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#### Save the widget
Once you are satisfied with the configuration, click **Save changes** to add the Stacked Bar Chart to your dashboard.
{% hint style="info" %}
Remember to save the Dashboard itself after setting up the widget, otherwise your changes will not be persisted.
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