Creating a scatter chart in Google Sheets with color-coded points based on a third column

I’m working with a Google Sheets document that has three columns of data:

Score   Time    Status
35      18      Pass
42      25      Pass
8       12      Fail
15      14      Fail
6       8       Fail

I need to create a scatter plot where Score becomes the X-axis and Time becomes the Y-axis. The tricky part is that I want each data point to have a different color based on what’s in the Status column.

So all the “Pass” entries should show up as one color and all the “Fail” entries should be another color on the same chart. Is there a way to do this in Google Sheets without having to create separate data series manually?

Here’s a workaround that’ll save you from manually splitting data every time. I create helper columns with IF formulas that separate everything automatically. In columns E and F, I use =IF(C2=“Pass”,A2,“”) and =IF(C2=“Pass”,B2,“”) for Pass data, then similar formulas in G and H for Fail data. When you make your scatter chart, just select these helper columns as separate series - Google Sheets automatically assigns different colors to each. Empty cells get ignored so you won’t get weird zero data points. I’ve done this for project tracking with different status categories and it works reliably.

a simple way to do this is to go to data and filter by ‘Pass’ first, copy those rows to a new sheet, then do the same for ‘Fail’. while making the scatter chart, just select both datasets as separate series. Sheets colors them differently for you!

While Google Sheets lacks an automatic feature for color-coding scatter plot points based on a third column, you can achieve this by manually separating your data. Create one dataset for the ‘Pass’ entries and another for the ‘Fail’ entries. This allows you to build the scatter plot by adding each series individually, ensuring each category is represented in its distinct color. It requires a bit more effort, but the visual distinction on your chart will be worth it.