I download weather data from a site that gives me temperature, precipitation, etc, by month and year. I import this into a table and create a bar chart by year and month. The month table has one record for each month, 1-12, and a global calculation set to the value of year. I create relationships each year linking by month and the global year field. Then I define a series using this table view. It works great. The problem is, every year I have to modify the month table to add a new year, modify the relationship graph to add a new table view, and modify the chart to add the new series. Tedious. Is there a better way?

The problem of gathering data for the series is solvable (esp. if you're willing to have the chart produced on demand by script). However, in the chart tool, you must pre-define the maximum number of series you want to show. Do you intend to add a series for each year, without placing a limit? If you do, then perhaps you should be looking for a different charting tool, using the web viewer.

 

I can see doing it similar to what I did using an ordinal number, index, calculated based on year, e.g., index=maxSeries - currentYear - year, and defining a series for each index number, 1…maxYear. That’s not exactly collecting data. What did you have in mind?

Sorry, I don't know what you're referring to. I did not have anything specific in mind (at least not yet). All I said was that you can avoid adding calculation fields, table occurrences and relationships to your file's schema - but you cannot avoid adding a series to the chart setup for each year you want to include. That is why I asked if you intend to have a limit to the number of years shown in the chart. I don't see that you have answered my question.