I’m building a nutrition dashboard and I’m running into an issue with the Pie Chart component.
Goal
Show a pie chart with 3 slices (Protein / Carbs / Fat) for the last 30 days, based on the user’s logged entries.
My current data structure
Collection: Voeding – Macros
Date (Datum)
Macro name (Macro – naam) e.g., “Eiwitten”, “Koolhydraten”, “Vetten”
Macro value (Macro – waarde) (Number)
User (relationship) / Created By (logged in user)
Each day I store 3 records (one per macro), so over 7 days there are ~21 records.
Issue
The Pie Chart treats each record as a separate slice, so I get duplicate labels (e.g., “Koolhydraten” appears multiple times). There is no built-in way to group by label and sum values inside the chart. I also sometimes see “Other” when a label is empty.
What I’ve tried
Filtering to Logged In User (works, but doesn’t solve duplicates)
Date filter (last 7 days) (works, but still duplicates)
It sounds like the Adalo Pie Chart component is visualizing your raw records rather than performing “Group By” or “Sum” aggregations. To get that clean 3-slice chart, you need a data structure that mirrors exactly what you want to see: one row per macro type.
I know you mentioned wanting to avoid external tools, but I find that using a “middleware” approach often saves hours of headache. However, I’ve included a native Adalo workaround as well.
1. The “Middleware” Approach (Fastest & Most Scalable)
You can use n8n (which takes about 2 minutes to spin up on Railway using a template) to act as your data aggregator.
The Flow: When the user views the dashboard, trigger an n8n workflow via an Adalo Custom Action.
The Logic: n8n pulls the last 30 days of records from Adalo, sums them by “Macro Name,” and then:
Option A: Updates a specific “Summary” collection in Adalo (3 rows per user) that the chart is linked to.
Option B: Sends the data to an external serverless function (like a Chart.js wrapper) and displays the chart via a Web Portal component.
2. The “Summary Collection” (Native Adalo Workaround)
If you want to stay strictly inside Adalo, you’ll need to “pre-calculate” the totals to avoid database bloat:
Step 1: Create a MacroSummary collection with properties: User, MacroName, and TotalValue.
Step 2: Every time a user adds a new nutrition log, add a second action to that submit button. This action should update the corresponding record in the MacroSummary collection (e.g., Current Summary > TotalValue + New Value).
Step 3: Point your Pie Chart to this MacroSummary collection instead of the raw logs. This ensures the chart only ever sees 3 records per user.
Let me know if that is helpful or if you’d like to see how I’ve structured my own external integrations for similar projects! -Michael
