Several series are aligned if they have the same number of data points and the X values of all corresponding data points have identical values.
Series alignment enables you to make comparisons between series with values that have the same X-axis range. This is useful when reading charts with multiple data sets.

The following example shows two series that are not aligned.

Day

Product A

Product B
May 27

$41

($0)

May 28

$48

$81

May 28

$52

 

May 29

$73

$29

May 30

$26

($0)

May 31

$58

$23

May 31

$68

 

Jun 1

$72

$23

Jun 2

$23

($0)

Jun 2

$17

 

Jun 3

($0)

$69

In the example above, some days do not have any data point and other days have more than one data points. Furthermore, the data points do not line up with the grid lines because they data points of the same date have different time values.

By aligning the two series in the example above, you can get a chart that makes more sense. The figure below displays data that is grouped by day and includes empty points:

Day

Product A

Product B

May 27

$41

(empty)

May 28

$50

$81

May 29

$73

$29

May 30

$26

(empty)

May 31

$63

$23

Jun 1

$72

(empty)

Jun 2

$20

$23

Jun 3

(empty)

$69

When is Series Alignment Required?

The following operations require charts with multiple series to be aligned otherwise an exception will be thrown:

How to Align Series

You can align two series grouping data, filtering data, and inserting empty data points.

Grouping

Group series points in desired intervals, such as days, weeks, and months. Multiple points are grouped into single points (see the figures below).


Ungrouped


Grouped

Inserting Empty Points

Empty points represent missing data and can be used to maintain the same number of points in all series.

The figure below demonstrates the use of empty points to align two series.


Data without Empty Points 


Data with Empty Points