Mixing kinds of data in one widget

One widget can hold numbers from different kinds of data — Net sales from Sales, Money taken from Payments, Wastage value from Stock and costs — side by side on the same chart. This is for venues whose sidebar shows Reporting; see Build a widget for the builder itself.

An example

Say you want to see, day by day, what you sold, what you took, what you gave away and what you threw away:

1. 1

   Start a new widget

   Reporting → Widgets → New widget, then pick Sales.

2. 2

   Add the four numbers

   Set the Data box on the left to All data and add Net sales, Money taken, Discounts given and Wastage value.

3. 3

   Put Time along the bottom, by day

   Drop Time on the X-axis and choose Day.

4. 4

   Choose how each is drawn

   Open Net sales with its pencil and set it to Line; leave the other three as Bars. Pick Bars and a line as the chart if it isn't already.

You don't have to build this one: it is a starter called Sales, money taken, discounts and wastage by day (for venues that record wastage). See Starter widgets.

What lines up

Numbers from different kinds of data can only be put side by side on something they all have. Four things do:

• Date — Time along the bottom, by 15 minutes, hour, day, week, month or quarter.
• Site — for numbers that belong to a site.
• Day of the week.
• Hour of the day — for numbers that have a time of day. (Refunds, guests and loyalty, stock and costs, gift cards, the cash drawer and payouts are counted by day only.)

Anything more particular belongs to one kind of data. Category and Product are in Sales but not in Wastage; Station is in Kitchen only; Payment type is in Payments only. You can still use them in a widget that mixes — only when every number in it has them.

What's greyed out, and why

The builder never lets you build a widget that can't be drawn. Instead, it greys out what would break it and says why, right under the field:

• A grouping your numbers don't share shows Not in and the kind that lacks it. With Net sales and Wastage value on the chart, Category reads Not in Wastage. Groupings that none of your numbers have are tucked away behind Show unavailable.
• A number that can't follow your grouping says what to change. With Category in Break down by, Wastage value reads Wastage can't be split by Category. Take Category off first.
• The fifth number. A widget shows up to four numbers; take one off to add another.

Nothing is greyed out just for being a different kind of data.

Filters on a mixed widget

The Filters tab reads Only count where, because a mixed widget counts several different things. A rule must be about something every number has, so the same Not in … greying applies there. See Filters in a widget.

Sites and money paid to your bank

Paid to your bank is counted for the whole business, not per site: Tillable Payments pays all your sites into one bank account. So a widget that includes it can't be split, grouped or filtered by site. On a dashboard set to one site, the other numbers follow the site and the widget says that Paid to your bank covers every site.

When one number started later than the others

Some kinds of data only start on the day we began keeping them (kitchen tickets, for example). On a mixed widget, that number simply has no bars before its start, and the note under the chart says so, for example "Station tickets: no data before" its first day. The other numbers draw as normal.

When one number isn't available for your venue

If one of the numbers is one your venue doesn't use — Paid to your bank without Tillable Payments, or a Cash drawer number at a venue that doesn't do cash-ups or use the cash drawer — the widget still draws everything else. That number's legend entry reads, for example, Paid to your bank (bank date) — not available for your venue, with nothing drawn for it rather than a row of £0; in a table it reads Not available. In the builder you can't add such a number in the first place: it is greyed out with the reason. See What each kind of data counts.