I have a custom list with many views. I need to graph this views in a Dashboard. The graphs mostly need to count the number of items but I also need to show percentages using groupings by dates, locations, etc.
I don't have access to BI Center.
I tried Chart Web parts but cannot figure out how to manipulate the data to count. I read an article about creating a lookup field in a separate list and "looping" it back to my list...really cool trick and worked great but I need more calculations than just counting and it would end up being a lot of work and extra columns in the list.
I tried exporting the list to Excel, creating PivotTables, named ranges etc to display the data and charts I need, stored the file in the SharePoint site, then published back to SP using Excel Web Access web parts. This looks great and was easy but my data would not Refresh unless I opened the Excel file and refreshed. (I did have the library as a trusted site) Can this even be done...have the data automatically update? As I'm writing this, someone wrote to me and said, "SharePoint doesn't support real time data refresh with pivot tables in excel spreadsheets. User has to open the spreadsheet in client application and save it back to the library. Then SharePoint refreshes data in excel web access web part. Excel won't refresh data directly from SharePoint list."
I tried a link I found on this forum that had code you could paste into a web part. I'm not a programmer and neither is the client so I don't want to use an option that requires changing code. I was confused just reading the article...having to make formatting changes etc with code is not going to be what the client wants.
So how in the world can I easily dashboard a SharePoint list when I need to count items in the list and show percentages?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!