KB10676: How to customize the colors appearing on a graph so the new color sequence is reflected across each report created in MicroStrategy Developer

Graphs in Strategy follow a pre-defined pattern of colors. The pattern always begins with the color red, green, yellow, etc. The pre-defined pattern of colors can be customized and saved as a template. To do this, perform the following steps:

• Consider the following report where the 'Region' attribute appears on the columns and the 'Revenue' metric appears on the rows. View this as a graph (in this case, a horizontal graph).
• Notice in the screen shot below that the default colors are shown on the graph:
  

• These colors come in a series with the first one always being red, then green, yellow, etc. After a certain number, this color series appears again. The screen shot below displays the pre-defined pattern of colors displayed in a graph (Graph > Preferences > Colors):
  

• To change the first color in the sequence from red to black, click on the red segment, and click Edit. Choose the color black and click OK. The first color in the pattern will now be changed to black and will be reflected in the graph, as shown below:
  

• Alternatively, users can right-click on the red segment in the graph, and go to Format Bar Riser. Change the color to black in the 'Fill' tab:
  

• When changing the color using either of the two methods described above, the change will not be reflected in the next report created. The next report will appear with the default colors seen in the above screen shot.
• Once the color sequence has been changed as desired, go to Graph > Save Graph Style and save the newly created graph template.
• Create a new report with the attribute 'Region' and metric 'Revenue' as the first report.
• Notice that the graph appears in the default pre-defined sequence of colors. Go to Graph > Apply Graph Style and choose the graph template.

The graph will appear with the first segment in black as defined in the template.
 
NOTE:

• The template does not assign a particular color to an attribute and instead customizes the pre-defined pattern of graph colors.
• For more information on this topic, refer to the following Strategy Knowledge Base document:
  
• KB5700-752-1266 - How to customize a color for an attribute value in graphs for Strategy Desktop