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To create a Line Chart by Month and Year in Power BI, you can follow these steps:
1. Start by importing your data into Power BI and selecting the columns for Month and Year.
2. Next, click on the “Line Chart” visualization option from the “Visualization” pane.
3. Drag and drop the Month column onto the “Axis” field and the Year column onto the “Legend” field.
4. Lastly, add the desired measure to the “Values” field to display the data on the chart.
This will create a Line Chart that showcases the data by month and year, allowing you to track trends and patterns over time. You can further customize the chart by adding filters, titles, and other formatting options to enhance the visual representation of your data.
Often you may want to create a line chart that displays the values of some variable summarized by month and year.
The following step-by-step example shows how to create the following line chart by month and year in Power BI:
Let’s jump in!
Step 1: Load the Dataset
First, we will load the following dataset into Power BI that contains information about the total sales made on various dates by some company:
Step 2: Create Column that Contains Month & Year
Next, we will add a new column to the table that contains the month and year of each date.
To do so, click the Table tools tab along the top ribbon, then click the New column icon:
Then type the following formula into the formula bar:
month_year = FORMAT('my_data'[Date], "MM/YYYY")
This will create a new column named month_year that only contains the month and the year of each date:
Step 3: Insert the Line Chart
Next, click the Report View icon on the left hand side of the screen:
Then, on the right side of the screen under Visualizations, click the Line chart icon:
An empty line chart will be inserted:
Step 4: Populate the Chart
Next, drag the month_year variable under the X-axis label, then drag the Date variable under the X-axis label, then drag the Sales variable under the Y-axis label:
Next, delete the month_year variable under the X-axis label, then delete the Quarter and Day options under the Date dropdown menu:
The end result will be a line chart that displays the sum of sales by month and year:
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Power BI: