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Charts and visualizations

Strata turns query results, uploaded data, and analytical insights into interactive in-line charts and other rich visual blocks.

Asking for a chart

Use natural language. Any of these work:

  • "Chart this."
  • "Show me a pie chart of revenue by region."
  • "Plot orders over time."
  • "Visualize the breakdown."

In Auto and Simple modes Strata also adds charts on its own whenever the answer is numerical or comparative. In Technical mode, charts appear whenever the data benefits from one. See /docs/chat/modes.

Supported chart types

Strata emits a chart code block that the frontend renders. The following types are supported:

  • bar, horizontalBar — categorical comparisons
  • line — trends over time
  • pie, doughnut — share of a whole
  • scatter — relationships between two numerical variables
  • radar — multivariate comparison
  • waterfall — running totals that climb and fall
  • histogram — frequency distribution
  • gauge — single KPI vs. a target
  • treemap — hierarchical proportional area
  • candlestick — OHLC financial data
  • gantt — task timelines
  • funnel — conversion stages

A bar, line or area chart can also combine shapes and scales:

  • Bars and a line together, such as revenue as bars with margin as a line.
  • A second axis on the right for a series in different units, so dollars and percentages each get a readable scale.
  • Marker lines: a dashed horizontal line at a value (a target, zero) or a vertical one at a category (a launch, a quarter), each with its label. The axis stretches to show a target above the data.

Heatmaps and other custom plots are not part of the chart block. For those, Strata reaches for Analysis and returns an image. See /docs/chat/python.

Interacting with a chart

Strata renders the standard types (bar, line, pie, doughnut, scatter, radar, and their variants) with Chart.js. The richer types — gauge, treemap, candlestick, gantt, and funnel — are drawn with Strata's own renderers. Inside the chat you can:

  • Hover any data point to see its exact value in a tooltip.
  • Click a legend item in a multi-series chart to hide or show that series.
  • Switch the chart type from the menu in the chart's header: a bar, line or area chart can be shown as Bar, Line, Area or Horizontal bar, and a pie as Pie or Doughnut. A chart that mixes bars and a line keeps its shapes and has no type menu. Each type has its own icon, in the menu and on the button (on a phone the button shows the icon alone). Your choice is remembered for that chart.
  • Click Expand to open the chart in a full-window view. The view fills the window, keeps the type menu and the PNG download in its header, and a type you pick there changes the chart in the conversation too. Escape closes it and returns you to the chart.

Charts adapt automatically to light and dark themes, and redraw when you switch themes, in the conversation and in the full-window view alike.

Every other visualization in a conversation opens full window the same way: correlation matrices, maps, calendars, diagrams, tables, the web view of Jira blocks (issues, boards, sprints, workloads, queues and SLAs), comparison carousels, before-and-after comparisons, and timelines and progress lists of eight or more items. A table keeps its header row in view while you scroll it there. Dashboards and file previews in the side panel, including Analysis plots, PDFs and documents, have an Expand button in their header too.

What-if charts with sliders

When the answer is a relationship rather than a table of results (a loan or mortgage payment, compound growth, a break-even, a price, a probability, how one number moves when another changes), Strata draws a what-if chart: the chart comes from a formula, and each input has a slider under it. Ask naturally:

  • "How does my monthly payment change with the interest rate on a $400,000 loan?"
  • "When does the launch pay back if the price changes?"
  • "What price maximizes profit?"
  • "What's the chance we hit the quarterly target?"
  • Drag a slider, or focus it and use the arrow keys, and the chart redraws as it moves. Each slider shows its value, and the results under the sliders update with it.
  • Reset puts every slider back where Strata set it.
  • The chart has the same header as any chart: switch its type, Expand it to the full window (it opens at the sliders' current values) or download it as a PNG.

What a what-if chart can show:

  • Lines, shaded areas, bars, or stacked bars or areas, or bars and a line together.
  • A second axis on the right, for a series in other units.
  • A running total over the horizontal axis, such as cumulative cash after a launch.
  • A dashed line for a baseline or a target, and a shaded band between a low and a high line.
  • Marker lines that move with the sliders: a vertical one (today's rate, the plan) or a horizontal one (a target, zero).
  • Results under the sliders: a number worked out from the sliders, a line's value at a given point, its highest or lowest point (or where that is, such as the best price), or the first point where it reaches a value, such as the month a launch breaks even. A line that never gets there says Not in range.

The formulas use arithmetic, comparisons and a fixed list of functions, including Excel's finance functions (PMT, FV, PV, NPER, RATE, NPV, IRR) with Excel's conventions, and statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, the normal distribution and its inverse, binomial and Poisson). Nothing else can run. What-if charts render in the Strata web chat. In the Outlook add-in Strata draws an ordinary chart at the case you asked about instead, and in Microsoft Teams it answers in prose and tables.

Other rich visual blocks

Beyond the chart block, Strata renders these inline rich components when the data fits them naturally:

  • Comparison cards — side-by-side metric tiles.
  • Progress bars — percentages or status against a target.
  • Timelines — chronological event lists.
  • Correlation matrices — heatmap-style correlation grid.
  • Email drafts — formatted email preview with To, Subject, and Body before sending.
  • Maps and places — an interactive map with markers, often paired with place cards, when a question is about locations.

See /docs/reference/blocks for the full reference.

Diagrams

For structure and relationships that a chart cannot show — flowcharts, sequence diagrams, entity-relationship and class diagrams, mind maps, and journeys — Strata renders Mermaid diagrams inline in the chat. Ask naturally:

  • "Diagram the approval workflow."
  • "Show the relationships between these tables as an ER diagram."
  • "Map out this process as a flowchart."

Strata emits a mermaid block that renders to a clean SVG in the chat transcript, adapting to light and dark themes like every other block. If a diagram can't be rendered, Strata shows the diagram source instead so nothing is lost.

Note

Diagrams render in the Strata web chat. On surfaces without the diagram renderer — such as the Microsoft Teams bot and the Outlook add-in — Strata describes the same structure as a nested list instead.

Refining a chart

The fastest way to change a chart is to ask:

  • "Make this a line chart instead."
  • "Add a second series for last year."
  • "Sort the bars descending."
  • "Use horizontal bars."

Strata produces a new chart inline; the previous one stays in the conversation transcript.

Exporting a chart

Charts drawn with Chart.js have a Download PNG button in their header (and in the full-window view, where the image is drawn at the larger size). The chart's title is drawn into the image, and when your organization has turned on Put our logo on files Strata creates, so is its logo (or its name, when no logo is set) at the right of the title, with a thin rule in the organization's accent color when one is set. For anything else:

  • Embed it in an Excel export. Ask Strata to "export this with the chart." The generated workbook includes a native Excel chart drawn from the same data. See /docs/chat/exports.
  • Capture from an analysis. For pixel-perfect images (with custom styling, annotations, or multi-panel layouts), ask Strata to "produce this as a PNG using Python." See /docs/chat/python.

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