Line charts in Power BI - Real Business Scenario

Scenario Mode

👤 Your Role: You are a sales analyst at a retail company.

📋 Request: Your manager wants to see how monthly sales have changed over the past year to identify trends and seasonal patterns.

📊 Data: You have a table with sales data including columns for Date (month and year), Product Category, and Sales Amount.

🎯 Deliverable: Create a line chart showing total sales amount for each month over the last 12 months.

Sample Data

Date	Product Category	Sales Amount
2023-07	Electronics	15000
2023-07	Clothing	8000
2023-08	Electronics	17000
2023-08	Clothing	9000
2023-09	Electronics	16000
2023-09	Clothing	8500
2023-10	Electronics	18000
2023-10	Clothing	9500
2023-11	Electronics	20000
2023-11	Clothing	10000
2023-12	Electronics	22000
2023-12	Clothing	11000

1

Step 1: Load the sales data table into Power BI.

Use 'Get Data' to import the sales data with columns Date, Product Category, and Sales Amount.

Expected Result

Sales data is available in Power BI for analysis.

2

Step 2: Create a new measure to calculate total sales per month.

Total Sales = SUM('Sales'[Sales Amount])

Expected Result

A measure named 'Total Sales' that sums sales amounts.

3

Step 3: Add a line chart visual to the report canvas.

Insert > Line Chart visual.

Expected Result

An empty line chart appears on the report.

4

Step 4: Set the X-axis to the Date column and the Y-axis to the Total Sales measure.

Drag 'Date' to X-axis and 'Total Sales' measure to Y-axis fields of the line chart.

Expected Result

Line chart shows total sales trend over months.

5

Step 5: Format the Date axis to show month and year clearly and sort chronologically.

In X-axis properties, set type to 'Categorical' and sort by Date ascending.

Expected Result

X-axis displays months in correct order from oldest to newest.

6

Step 6: Add chart title 'Monthly Sales Trend' and label axes for clarity.

Chart title: 'Monthly Sales Trend'; X-axis label: 'Month'; Y-axis label: 'Total Sales ($)'.

Expected Result

Chart is clearly titled and axes are labeled.

Final Result

Monthly Sales Trend

 25000 |                      *
       |                     * 
 20000 |                  *  *  
       |                 *      
 15000 |            *  *         
       |           *             
 10000 |      *  *               
       |                         
  5000 |                         
       +-------------------------
        Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

✓Sales increased steadily from July to December.

✓December had the highest sales, indicating a seasonal peak.

✓Electronics consistently contributed more sales than Clothing.

Bonus Challenge

Create a line chart that shows monthly sales trends separately for each product category.

Show Hint

Use the 'Product Category' field as a legend in the line chart to display separate lines.