dc.js Composite Graph - Plot New Line for Each Person

Question

Good Evening Everyone,

I'm trying to take the data from a database full of hour reports (name, timestamp, hours worked, etc.) and create a plot using dc.js to visualize the data. I would like the timestamp to be on the x-axis, the sum of hours for the particular timestamp on the y-axis, and a new bar graph for each unique name all on the same chart.

It appears based on my objectives that using crossfilter.js the timestamp should be my 'dimension' and then the sum of hours should be my 'group'.

Question 1, how would I then use the dimension and group to further split the data based on the person's name and then create a bar graph to add to my composite graph? I would like for the crossfilter.js functionality to remain intact so that if I add a date range tool or some other user controllable filter, everything updates accordingly.

Question 2, my timestamps are in MySQL datetime format: YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:SS so how would I go about dropping precision? For instance, if I want to combine all entries from the same day into one entry (day precision) or combine all entries in one month into a single entry (month precision).

Thanks in advance!

---- Added on 2017/01/28 16:06

To further clarify, I'm referencing the Crossfilter & DC APIs alongside the DC NASDAQ and Composite examples. The Composite example has shown me how to place multiple line/bar charts on a single graph. On the composite chart I've created, each of the bar charts I've added a dimension based off of the timestamps in the data-set. Now I'm trying to figure out how to define the groups for each. I want each bar chart to represent the total time worked per timestamp.

For example, I have five people in my database, so I want there to be five bar charts within the single composite chart. Today all five submitted reports saying they worked 8 hours, so now all five bar charts should show a mark at 01/28/2017 on the x-axis and 8 hours on the y-axis.

    var parseDate = d3.time.format('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S').parse;
    data.forEach(function(d) {
      d.timestamp = parseDate(d.timestamp);
    });
    var ndx              = crossfilter(data);
    var writtenDimension = ndx.dimension(function(d) {
      return d.timestamp;
    });
    var hoursSumGroup    = writtenDimension.group().reduceSum(function(d) {
      return d.time_total;
    });
    var minDate = parseDate('2017-01-01 00:00:00');
    var maxDate = parseDate('2017-01-31 23:59:59');
    var mybarChart = dc.compositeChart("#my_chart");
    mybarChart
      .width(window.innerWidth)
      .height(480)
      .x(d3.time.scale().domain([minDate,maxDate]))
      .brushOn(false)
      .clipPadding(10)
      .yAxisLabel("This is the Y Axis!")
      .compose([
        dc.barChart(mybarChart)
            .dimension(writtenDimension)
            .colors('red')
            .group(hoursSumGroup, "Top Line")
      ]);

So based on what I have right now and the example I've provided, in the compose section I should have 5 charts because there are 5 people (obviously this needs to be dynamic in the end) and each of those charts should only show the timestamp: total_time data for that person.

At this point I don't know how to further breakup the group hoursSumGroup based on each person and this is where my Question #1 comes in and I need help figuring out.

Question #2 above is that I want to make sure that the code is both dynamic (more people can be handled without code change), when minDate and maxDate are later tied to user input fields, the charts update automatically (I assume through adjusting the dimension variable in some way), and if I add a names filter that if I unselect names that the chart will update by removing the data for that person.

A Question #3 that I'm now realizing I'll want to figure out is how to get the person's name to show up in the pointer tooltip (the title) along with timestamp and total_time values.

Answer 1

There are a number of ways to go about this, but I think the easiest thing to do is to create a custom reduction which reduces each person into a sub-bin.

First off, addressing question #2, you'll want to set up your dimension based on the time interval you're interested in. For instance, if you're looking at days:

var writtenDimension = ndx.dimension(function(d) {
    return d3.time.hour(d.timestamp);
});
chart.xUnits(d3.time.hours);

This will cause each timestamp to be rounded down to the nearest hour, and tell the chart to calculate the bar width accordingly.

Next, here's a custom reduction (from the FAQ) which will create an object for each reduced value, with values for each person's name:

var hoursSumGroup = writtenDimension.group().reduce(
    function(p, v) { // add
        p[v.name] = (p[v.name] || 0) + d.time_total;
        return p;
    },
    function(p, v) { // remove
        p[v.name] -= d.time_total;
        return p;
    },
    function() { // init
        return {};
    });    

I did not go with the series example I mentioned in the comments, because I think composite keys can be difficult to deal with. That's another option, and I'll expand my answer if that's necessary.

Next, we can feed the composite line charts with value accessors that can fetch the value by name.

Assume we have an array names.

compositeChart.shareTitle(false);
compositeChart.compose(
    names.map(function(name) {
        return dc.lineChart(compositeChart)
            .dimension(writtenDimension)
            .colors('red')
            .group(hoursSumGroup)
            .valueAccessor(function(kv) {
                return kv.value[name];
            })
            .title(function(kv) {
                return name + ' ' + kv.key + ': ' + kv.value;
            });
    }));

Again, it wouldn't make sense to use bar charts here, because they would obscure each other.

If you filter a name elsewhere, it will cause the line for the name to drop to zero. Having the line disappear entirely would probably not be so simple.

The above shareTitle(false) ensures that the child charts will draw their own titles; the title functions just add the current name to those titles (which would usually just be key:value).