How to build a dynamic chart title using a text element

In Sigma Support, the question is often asked “Can I include dynamic text in my chart titles?”. As with many questions of that nature, the answer depends on your use case… In this brief how to we’ll start with a high level overview of current limitations on chart titles and then explore a couple demonstrations of the use cases where it can be configured.

What are the limitations?

Because Sigma chart objects are stored as JSON, each element must have a static element name in order for them to be queried and returned from the database. As this is the case, chart titles also function like IDs for the element, which poses a unique challenge for introducing native dynamic text in chart titles.

Above is an example of what it looks like if a user tries to enter a dynamic text formula in the chart title. Currently, chart titles cannot be configured to accept dynamic text inputs.

What are the ‘Best Practices’?

In order to give a visualization a dynamic title, we recommend positioning a Text element above or beside the viz and disabling the ‘Show Chart Title’ formatting option, or inputting a lone space character (" ") in the title text box, rendering it empty. Alternatively, the static chart title field can be re-purposed as as a subtitle.

What does this look like?

Above: A chart whose title has been hidden via the formatting menu.

Below: A chart whose title has been repurposed as a subtitle.

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I’ve used this approach many times, already… the only downside is that it takes the title out of the viz’s designated space, and it can look visually inconsistent if it is next to a viz that doesn’t use the text element workaround (requiring you to make them both text elements).

If there is any work being done to incorporate parameters or single-select filters into the viz titles themselves, that would be a major win.

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That’s great feedback @AdamD !

Added Chart, VisualizationFormat, Visualizations