Sorting data 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 the top-selling products sorted by total sales amount to identify best performers.

📊 Data: You have sales data including Product Name, Category, Units Sold, and Sales Amount for the last quarter.

🎯 Deliverable: Create a Power BI report page that shows a table of products sorted by Sales Amount in descending order.

Sample Data

Product Name	Category	Units Sold	Sales Amount
Wireless Mouse	Accessories	150	3750
USB-C Charger	Accessories	120	3600
Bluetooth Speaker	Audio	80	5600
Gaming Keyboard	Accessories	90	8100
HD Monitor	Displays	60	12000
Webcam	Accessories	110	4400
External Hard Drive	Storage	70	7000
Smartphone Stand	Accessories	130	1950

1

Step 1: Load the sales data into Power BI Desktop by importing the data source.

Use 'Get Data' > 'Excel' or 'CSV' depending on your file format, then load the table.

Expected Result

Sales data table appears in the Fields pane with columns: Product Name, Category, Units Sold, Sales Amount.

2

Step 2: Create a table visual on the report canvas.

From the Visualizations pane, select the 'Table' visual.

Expected Result

An empty table visual appears on the report page.

3

Step 3: Add 'Product Name' and 'Sales Amount' fields to the table visual.

Drag 'Product Name' and 'Sales Amount' from Fields pane into the Values area of the table visual.

Expected Result

The table shows each product with its corresponding sales amount.

4

Step 4: Sort the table by 'Sales Amount' in descending order.

Click the down arrow next to 'Sales Amount' column header in the table visual and select 'Sort descending'.

Expected Result

The table rows reorder so that the product with the highest sales amount is at the top.

5

Step 5: Format the Sales Amount column to show currency.

Select the Sales Amount field in the Fields pane, then in the Column tools tab, set Data type to 'Decimal Number' and Format to 'Currency'.

Expected Result

Sales Amount values display with currency symbol and two decimal places.

Final Result

-----------------------------------
| Product Name       | Sales Amount |
-----------------------------------
| HD Monitor         | $12,000.00   |
| Gaming Keyboard    | $8,100.00    |
| External Hard Drive| $7,000.00    |
| Bluetooth Speaker  | $5,600.00    |
| Webcam             | $4,400.00    |
| Wireless Mouse     | $3,750.00    |
| USB-C Charger      | $3,600.00    |
| Smartphone Stand   | $1,950.00    |
-----------------------------------

✓HD Monitor is the top-selling product with $12,000 in sales.

✓Gaming Keyboard and External Hard Drive also have strong sales above $7,000.

✓Smartphone Stand has the lowest sales among the listed products.

Bonus Challenge

Add a slicer to filter the table by product category and observe how the sorting updates dynamically.

Show Hint

Use the 'Slicer' visual and add the 'Category' field to it. Then select categories to filter the table.