Showing customized intermediate total bars

The intermediate total bars in a waterfall chart usually summarize categories at certain levels in a hierarchically organized data. However, you can customize which categories an intermediate total bar should represent.

About this task

The example below illustrates how this can be done using grouping categories.

The waterfall chart shows sales figures for a number of countries. Assume you want to show one intermediate total for the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), and one intermediate total for the Nordic countries (Norway and Sweden), but still be able to view the contribution from each of these countries.

Procedure

In the waterfall chart, mark the Belgium, Luxembourg, and Netherlands blocks.
Right-click the waterfall chart, and select Group from marked categories.
The Group from marked categories dialog opens, see below.
In the drop-down list, select the column containing the values to group.
Check that correct axis is selected, and correct values.
Type a name of the new group, Benelux, and click OK.
In the same way as described above, group Norway and Sweden into a Nordic value.
A new data column, named Country (grouped) and containing the Benelux and Nordic values, is created.
Using the new data column, create a hierarchy on the category axis as shown below.
Right-click the waterfall chart, and in the opened Properties dialog, click Total bars.
Select One total bar per value in, and make sure Country (grouped) is selected in the drop-down list.
Intermediate total bars for Benelux and Nordic are shown.