Techniques are described for defining, creating, and presenting a chart. When the chart is called, up-to-date information is used to create the chart. This allows the chart to reflect current key performance indicators for a business. A tool can also be provided for creating a chart definition, which is used to instantiate the chart. The tool provides graphical inputs for a user to select the inputs, operations and outputs into the chart. The tool enables users to create the chart definition with little or no programming.