Give Charts the ability to read text mode

[#1]

I changed a column from Manager ID to Manager Name. I set up a Prompt for Manager Name. I have a Grouping for Manager Name. On the Chart page, I selected Manager Name for my Y Axis. But when I run the report, the Y Axis shows "No Value" as the only option. What I was told is that Charts do not have the ability of registering text mode, and the workaround would be to use a custom field.

If I can create a field, I should be able to utilize it. So Charts need to be able to read what I've created on the report.

[#2]

Adding my comment that this sounds like very basic and fundamental functionality that is clearly lacking.

[#3]

This would be great since I recently found out that the application, when sorting on Owner, only sorts on the last name. In order to sort by last and first text mode needs to be used but then the chart functionality is missing. Too many reports require text mode and the visual is important. We used to export data to excel to run reports and were demonstrated Workfront as a tool to eliminate excel reports and charts.

[#4]

Is there any timeline for pushing this out to the PROD environment?