Integration with Highcharts

This tutorial will help you integrate Flexmonster with the Highcharts charting library.

Watch the tutorial in the video format: Pivot table with Highcharts.

This guide contains the following sections:

• Supported chart types
• Adding Highcharts
• Flexmonster Connector for Highcharts

Supported chart types

Flexmonster supports the following Highchart types:

• area (demo)
• arearange (demo)
• areaspline (demo)
• areasplinerange (demo)
• bar (demo)
• bubble (demo)
• column (demo)
• columnrange (demo)
• errorbar (demo)
• funnel (demo)
• line (demo)
• pie (demo)
• polygon (demo)
• pyramid (demo)
• scatter (demo)
• spline (demo)
• waterfall (demo)

If the chart type that you want to use is not on the list, it is possible to use prepareDataFunction to preprocess the data to fit your preferences.

More ready-to-use examples of integration with Highcharts you can find on the Examples page.

Adding Highcharts

Step 1. Add the component using data from a CSV file to your HTML page. Replace XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX with your license key. If you don't have a license key, contact our team and request a special trial key.

<div id="pivotContainer">The component will appear here</div>
<script src="https://cdn.flexmonster.com/flexmonster.js"></script>

<script>
  var pivot = new Flexmonster({ 
    container: "pivotContainer",
    componentFolder: "https://cdn.flexmonster.com/",
    toolbar: true,
    report: {
      dataSource: {
        filename: "data/data.csv"
      },
      slice: {
        rows: [
          { uniqueName: "Country" }
        ],
        columns: [
          { uniqueName: "Business Type" },
          { uniqueName: "[Measures]" } 
        ],
        measures: [
          { uniqueName: "Price" }
        ]
      }
    },
    licenseKey: "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX"
  });
</script>

Step 2. Add Highcharts:

<script src="https://code.highcharts.com/highcharts.js"></script>

Step 3. Add our connector for Highcharts:

<script src="https://cdn.flexmonster.com/lib/flexmonster.highcharts.js"></script>

Step 4. Add a container for the chart:

<div id="chartContainer"></div>

Step 5. Add a reportComplete event handler to know when the pivot table is ready to be a data provider:

reportcomplete: function() {
  pivot.off("reportcomplete");
  createChart();
} 

Step 6. Add a function to create the chart. This function uses the connector for Highcharts from flexmonster.highcharts.js. The connector extends the Flexmonster API with the following call: highcharts.getData(options, callbackHandler, updateHandler).

function createChart() {
  pivot.highcharts.getData(
    {},
    function(chartConfig) {
      Highcharts.chart("chartContainer", chartConfig);
    },  
    function(chartConfig) {
      Highcharts.chart("chartContainer", chartConfig);
    }
  );
} 

You will see a line chart that displays the same data that is shown in the pivot pivot table instance and it will react to updates. Check out a live example on JSFiddle.

You can also watch our video tutorial that covers the integration process:

Flexmonster Connector for Highcharts

flexmonster.highcharts.js is a connector between our component and Highcharts. The highcharts.getData() method requests data from the pivot table and preprocesses it to the appropriate format for the required type of chart.

highcharts.getData(options:Object, callbackHandler:Function, updateHandler:Function) has the following parameters:

function pie() {
  pivot.highcharts.getData(
    {
      type: "pie"
    },
    function(chartConfig) {
      Highcharts.chart("chartContainer", chartConfig);
    },
    function(chartConfig) {
      Highcharts.chart("chartContainer", chartConfig);
    }
  );
} 

function withManyYAxis() {
  pivot.highcharts.getData(
    {
      type: "column",
      slice: {
        rows: [{uniqueName: "Country"}],
        columns: [{uniqueName: "[Measures]"}],
        measures: [
          {uniqueName: "Price"},
          {uniqueName: "Quantity"}
        ]
      }
    },
    function(chartConfig) {
      Highcharts.chart("chartContainer", chartConfig);
    },
    function(chartConfig) {
      Highcharts.chart("chartContainer", chartConfig);
    }
  );
} 

The connector has several functions for defining number formatting for Highcharts. All these functions take the pivot table FormatObject and return the formatting string in Highcharts format. The Highcharts format string is a template for labels with one of the following variables inserted in a bracket notation: value, point.x, point.y, or point.z. For example, "{value:.2f}" is for two decimal places. Thus, there are four functions in the connector that convert the Flexmonster's FormatObject to the Highcharts format string (refer to the Highcharts documentation for more details about the format strings).

• highcharts.getAxisFormat(format) – String. Takes the pivot table FormatObject and returns the Highcharts format string with the value variable.
• highcharts.getPointXFormat(format) – String. Takes the pivot table FormatObject and returns the Highcharts format string with the point.x variable.
• highcharts.getPointYFormat(format) – String. Takes the pivot table FormatObject and returns the Highcharts format string with the point.y variable.
• highcharts.getPointZFormat(format) – String. Takes the pivot table FormatObject and returns the Highcharts format string with the point.z variable.

These functions can be used in both callbackHandler and updateHandler to define the number formatting for axes and tooltips. Try it on JSFiddle.