Help with graphing (Date, Time and Output)

[amaynew]

Hi guys.. relatively new with the forum and actually I really joined to ask for help.

I'm trying to graph 3 variables. I've got to put into one graph 3 variables which is date, time and output...

The time element is important, since the output is intermittent, meaning that any given date, the output might be no output in some hours, while there is in other parts of the day.

Hope you can help me out guys. Thanks.

[MrShorty]

Are date and time really considered separate variables for this? I'm reading a lot into this, but my first thought is that it is similar to this discussion about the difference between scatter and line charts when using date/time as x axis data: http://www.excelforum.com/excel-char...ml#post3348512

If that doesn't describe your problem, describe your problem in more detail (and example of some kind would be particularly helpful).

[amaynew]

Hi MrShorty

Thanks for your reply.

Actually, I've checked online for a solution for my problem because I guess I was not the only one who's having this problem. I opened the link, and I guess it doesn't solve the problem that I have.

I have 3 variables available... I have the date, and the particular hour of the day as well as an output.
so in any given day, there maybe an output for a specific time of the day.

The task is to illustrate the output for that particular hour in that particular day. The complication is the fact that I have to show an entire months worth of data in the graph...

for example here's a table illustrating 24 hrs with its output

Date Hour Output
26-Jan-13 1 0
26-Jan-13 2 0
26-Jan-13 3 0
26-Jan-13 4 0
26-Jan-13 5 0
26-Jan-13 6 0
26-Jan-13 7 0
26-Jan-13 8 0
26-Jan-13 9 0
26-Jan-13 10 0
26-Jan-13 11 0
26-Jan-13 12 0
26-Jan-13 13 0
26-Jan-13 14 4.55776975
26-Jan-13 15 0
26-Jan-13 16 0
26-Jan-13 17 0
26-Jan-13 18 0
26-Jan-13 19 0
26-Jan-13 20 0
26-Jan-13 21 0
26-Jan-13 22 0
26-Jan-13 23 0
26-Jan-13 24 0
27-Jan-13 1 0
27-Jan-13 2 0
27-Jan-13 3 0
27-Jan-13 4 0
27-Jan-13 5 0
27-Jan-13 6 0
27-Jan-13 7 0
27-Jan-13 8 0
27-Jan-13 9 0
27-Jan-13 10 0
27-Jan-13 11 0
27-Jan-13 12 0
27-Jan-13 13 0
27-Jan-13 14 0
27-Jan-13 15 0
27-Jan-13 16 0
27-Jan-13 17 0
27-Jan-13 18 0
27-Jan-13 19 0
27-Jan-13 20 0
27-Jan-13 21 0
27-Jan-13 22 0
27-Jan-13 23 0
27-Jan-13 24 0
28-Jan-13 1 0
28-Jan-13 2 0
28-Jan-13 3 0
28-Jan-13 4 0
28-Jan-13 5 0
28-Jan-13 6 0
28-Jan-13 7 0
28-Jan-13 8 0
28-Jan-13 9 0
28-Jan-13 10 0
28-Jan-13 11 0
28-Jan-13 12 0
28-Jan-13 13 0
28-Jan-13 14 0
28-Jan-13 15 0
28-Jan-13 16 6.135419956
28-Jan-13 17 0
28-Jan-13 18 0
28-Jan-13 19 0
28-Jan-13 20 4.371888388
28-Jan-13 21 45.69640017
28-Jan-13 22 30.45789125
28-Jan-13 23 14.83817525

My friend suggested that I use the ouput as the y axis and the time and date as X axis but if I follow that path, the graph will be too long specially since I have to illustrate the outputs for every hour in an entire month.

What I was thinking is to illustrate it by using the hour of the day as y axis and the date as X axis and the output illustrated as an exact value for every hour of the day.... but I figured, that doesn't look like a graph. so basically I'm lost on how to illustrate it.

Thanks for your inputs.

Steve

[MrShorty]

In many ways, I'm not sure your question is necessarily Excel specific. It sounds like you aren't sure what you want the graph to look like, which is often a more important question to figure out before trying to figure out how to create that kind of graph in Excel.

What I was thinking is to illustrate it by using the hour of the day as y axis and the date as X axis and the output illustrated as an exact value for every hour of the day.... but I figured, that doesn't look like a graph. so basically I'm lost on how to illustrate it.

In many ways, this sound like a "bubble chart" where one axis is day of the month, the other axis is hour of the day and the bubble size is output. Perhaps try this http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...749.aspx?CTT=1 and see if this gives you something you can work with.