Construct Waterfall Charts with Plotly Graph Objects | by Alan Jones | Sep, 2023

Plotly offers you two methods of drawing charts: Graph Objects and Plotly Specific. The primary is a set of low-level capabilities that present most flexibility for creating charts, whereas Plotly Specific offers us a set of easy-to-use strategies that implement essentially the most generally used charts.

Plotly Specific capabilities are primarily wrappers round Plotly Graph Objects.

However there isn’t a Waterfall Chart methodology in Plotly Specific, so we’re going to current a waterfall chart operate that’s easy to make use of for what might be the most typical use case and likewise has the pliability to handle extra complicated utilization.

Waterfall charts

Waterfall charts are a bit like bar charts which were break up over a lot of columns. They’re typically used to indicate the rise and reduce of a worth over time. For instance, take the next information.

labels = ["Start balance", "Consulting", "Net revenue", 
"Purchases", "Other expenses", "Profit before tax"]
information = [20, 80, 10, -40, -20, 0 ]

The labels symbolize quantities of money in numerous classes which have both been acquired or spent and the info are the precise quantities (in {dollars}, a whole lot of {dollars}, 1000’s… no matter).

We will usefully symbolize this information as a waterfall chart the place the primary column is the start line, the final column is the endpoint and the columns in between present the money move that resulted within the remaining sum.

Sometimes, a waterfall chart distinguishes optimistic and unfavorable quantities by color — on this case, inexperienced for optimistic and pink for unfavorable. The ultimate column is given a 3rd color as this represents the ultimate outcome moderately than a optimistic or unfavorable change.

It is a typical use case though extra complicated charts are doable.