Studio View: Missing Categories on NULL Values, Incorrect X-Axis Sorting in Charts & Equivalent to "Explicit boundaries"

Question

Problem Description: In a Celonis Studio View, I am creating a column chart to display process cycle times, which are categorized into different intervals (buckets) using a CASE WHEN statement. During this process, two main issues occur:Missing Columns/Categories for Empty Data (NULL / No Data): If no records exist for a specific interval within the current filter context, the corresponding interval is not displayed as an empty category (a bar with value 0) on the X-axis; instead, it is simply omitted from the chart. This results in missing segments along the axis labels, making interpretation difficult.Incorrect/Alphabetical Sorting of the X-Axis: Since the CASE WHEN statement returns text labels for the intervals (e.g., '-15 - 0', '0', '1 - 9'), Celonis defaults to sorting the X-axis alphabetically rather than logically/numerically. Manually overriding this via the Sorting field with a separate numeric PQL formula (CASE WHEN ... THEN 1 ... THEN 2) does not yield the desired result, as dynamic sorting expressions are restricted within the View component editor or fail to update the layout as expected.In the old Process Analytics views, the Advanced Component Options included the setting "Partition rule (integer) = Explicit boundaries". This allowed fixed boundaries (e.g., -45, -30, -15, 0, 1, 9, 29, 59) to be defined directly within the component settings. This automatically rendered empty categories and ensured correct numerical sorting.X-Axis PQL Example (Current Approach):CASE    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < -45 THEN '< -45'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < -30 THEN '-45 - -30'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < -15 THEN '-30 - -15'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < 0   THEN '-15 - 0'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < 1   THEN '0'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < 9   THEN '1 - 9'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < 29  THEN '9 - 29'    WHEN "TABLE"."cycletime" < 59  THEN '29 - 59'    ELSE '≥ 59'ENDQuestion 1: Is there an equivalent to the old "Explicit boundaries" feature in the new Celonis Studio Views (e.g., via Visual Editor or YAML/JSON configuration) to bind numeric intervals directly within the component configuration? Question 2: If there is no direct UI equivalent: How can we force all defined interval categories to be rendered on the X-axis in Views, even when the metric evaluates to 0 or NULL (e.g., by overriding automatic NULL stripping)?Question 3: What is the best practice in Celonis Views for sorting custom text categories logically/numerically on the X-axis without having to prefix the label text with leading numbers (like 1., 2.)?Note: We would prefer not to resolve this issue on the backend side (Data Model transformations). Are there purely frontend-based alternatives available?

abhishek.chatu14 · Accepted Answer

Let me try to answer your questions one by one.

Question 1: Is there an equivalent to the old “Explicit Boundaries” feature in the new Celonis Studio Views?

Based on the current evidence, there does not appear to be a true equivalent in the new Studio Views, either through the Visual Editor or YAML/JSON configuration, that allows exact numeric intervals to be directly bound within the component configuration, as was possible with the old Analysis “Explicit Boundaries” feature.

Best practice workaround when exact bins are required:

Define the intervals explicitly in PQL using CASE WHEN or appropriate bucket functions.

Use these explicitly defined categories as the dimension in a Bar Chart rather than relying on the Histogram component's automatic bucketing.

Question 2: If there is no direct UI equivalent, how can we force all defined interval categories to appear on the X axis, even when the metric evaluates to 0 or NULL?

For fixed, named categories, one approach is to create a synthetic category domain and use COALESCE to ensure the expected categories are returned.

For example:

COALESCE(
    CASE
        WHEN <value> < 0 THEN '< 0'
        WHEN <value> < 10 THEN '0-9'
        WHEN <value> < 20 THEN '10-19'
        ELSE '20+'
    END,
    CASE
        WHEN RANGE_APPEND(BIND("YourTable", 1), 1, 1, 4) = 1 THEN '< 0'
        WHEN RANGE_APPEND(BIND("YourTable", 1), 1, 1, 4) = 2 THEN '0-9'
        WHEN RANGE_APPEND(BIND("YourTable", 1), 1, 1, 4) = 3 THEN '10-19'
        WHEN RANGE_APPEND(BIND("YourTable", 1), 1, 1, 4) = 4 THEN '20+'
    END
)

This provides a fallback category domain so that the predefined intervals can still be represented even when the underlying metric has no corresponding value.

Question 3: What is the best practice for sorting custom text categories logically or numerically on the X axis without prefixing the labels with numbers?

The recommended approach is to separate the display label from the sort order.

For example, keep the user facing dimension as:

0-30 Days

31-60 Days

61-90 Days

Then create a separate numeric field that defines the desired sort order:

1

2

3

For example, in PQL:

Label field:

CASE
    ...
    THEN '0-30 Days'
    ...
    THEN '31-60 Days'
    ...
    THEN '61-90 Days'
END

Sort field:

CASE
    ...
    THEN 1
    ...
    THEN 2
    ...
    THEN 3
END

The sort field should be included in the chart query and used to control the ordering, while the label field remains the dimension displayed to the user.

Chitra · Answer

Hello ​@lukashlrFollowing up on the above issue posted by you. Our community champion ​@abhishek.chatu14has provided a detail answer for it.Did the response provided by himhelp resolve your issue?If it worked for you, please take a moment to click "Best Answer" . This gives credit to the expert and helps other community members with the same question find the answer faster.If you're still running into trouble, let us know so we can continue to assist!Best regards,Chitra HL

Question 1: Is there an equivalent to the old “Explicit Boundaries” feature in the new Celonis Studio Views?

Question 2: If there is no direct UI equivalent, how can we force all defined interval categories to appear on the X axis, even when the metric evaluates to 0 or NULL?

Question 3: What is the best practice for sorting custom text categories logically or numerically on the X axis without prefixing the labels with numbers?

Question 1: Is there an equivalent to the old “Explicit Boundaries” feature in the new Celonis Studio Views?

Question 2: If there is no direct UI equivalent, how can we force all defined interval categories to appear on the X axis, even when the metric evaluates to 0 or NULL?

Question 3: What is the best practice for sorting custom text categories logically or numerically on the X axis without prefixing the labels with numbers?

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO